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From: gazit@cs.duke.EDU (Hillel Gazit)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: IQ tests (Was Re: sexist space)
Message-ID: <664152739@grad17.cs.duke.edu>
Date: 18 Jan 91 00:41:44 GMT
References: <1991Jan5.044751.19198@ora.com> <11119@helios.TAMU.EDU> <IbZPvNe00WB9IEwqJE@andrew.cmu.edu>
Organization: Nefolet shel nemushot (Fallout of Wimps)
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In article <IbZPvNe00WB9IEwqJE@andrew.cmu.edu> ag1v+@andrew.cmu.EDU ("Andrea B. Gansley-Ortiz") writes:

>A couple years ago a black man redid the standard IQ test in such a
>way that it centered on a black community's knowledge.  The results
>were that blacks scored above average while whites/other minorities
>did not score as well.

I have no doubt that it can be done, the only question is what
do you suggest to do about that; there are two choices:

1) To skew the exams in the direction of the group *you* like.

2) To throw all these exams out of the window.

Before you answer, I want to tell you a story:

When I was accepted to the Technion, Israel they used entrance exams
in math and physics.  The idea was that if your grades were higher
than the matriculation grades then they did not care about the
matriculation; if they were lower then they average the matriculation
and the exam grade.

No IQ tests.

I asked, informally, what was the reason and the answer I got,
informally, was that they checked the idea and the tests in math and
physics were a better prediction *for their students*.  (When they
ignored the matriculation grade they got a better prediction, but they
could not continue the practice because of political pressures.)

The result of the Technion's system was that people who did not do too
well in high school had a second chance - pass these two hard exams.

The results were that:
1) Students who came from the best high schools with excellent matriculation
   suddenly had to compete with people like me with below average
   matriculation.  It was nice to see an over-inflated ego lose air...

2) The Technion picked some of the best students (e.g. I and Salit) who
   had no chance to be accepted to other universities.  Good students
   give an edge to a university, and it helped to keep the Technion as
   the best technological institute in Israel.

3) Comparing the results of the entrance exams with the matriculation
   proved that something was (and is) rotten in the matriculation system.

Later Political pressure forced the Technion to adopt a system of
IQ entrance exams similar to the other universities, and give up
their method.

The free market responded by expensive courses that can
raise the IQ grade by 30 points in a couple of months.

(I don't think that any course could do something
similar to math and physics grades...)

I hope that you can see why I think that IQ tests are not the
right tool to sort applicants, and that's why people who want
to discriminate are so happy to use them...

>ag

Hillel                                           gazit@cs.duke.edu

"...13 of 17 valedictorians in Boston high schools last spring were immigrants
or children of immigrants." --  US. News & World Report, May 14, 1990