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From: jae@whuxlm.UUCP (Jae Chung)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Re: Northwestern?/caltech
Message-ID: <856@whuxlm.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Oct-85 08:59:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxlm.856
Posted: Thu Oct 24 08:59:45 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 25-Oct-85 03:55:02 EDT
References: <1730@watdcsu.UUCP> <249@laidbak.UUCP> <990@oddjob.UUCP> <112@cher.UUCP> <3032@sdcc3.UUCP> <760@adobe.UUCP> <3045@sdcc3.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
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> In article <760@adobe.UUCP> greid@adobe.UUCP (Glenn Reid) writes:
> >>OK. My SAT Math score was 780. (780=1 wrong)
> >>
> >>Eric Anderson, UC San Diego
> >
> >Wrong.  The scores on the SAT's have nothing to do with how many you "get
> >wrong".  They are standard deviations from the statistical mean.  This is to
> >say that the median score of all the folks who took that particular test is
> >declared to be 500.  The lowest score on the exam is declared to get a 200,
> >and the highest score on the exam gets an 800.  The breaks are every 10
> >points on this scale (i.e. 800, 790, 780, etc.) but just because you got an
> >800 doesn't mean you got them all right, necessarily.  Neither does 780
> >mean "1 wrong".  Nonetheless, if everybody admitted to Caltech scored
> >extremely high on the SAT's, they all could very easily have gotten the same
> >score (800) which is just a certain number of standard deviations above the
> >average.
> >
> >Caltech usually has an entire undergraduate population of around 700 students,
> >from what I understand.
> >
> >Glenn Reid   {ihnp4!decwrl!adobe!greid}
> 
> No, I am perfectly correct: In any given year at least one person will get a
> perfect score (I know three such people from my high school). Thus 800 will be
> the top and perfect score. In a year when the test is hard, 1 wrong tends to
> be 780, if the test is easier 1 wrong tends to be 770. Moving down the scale
> this distinction is not so easy, but at the very end it changes very little.
> 
> 
> Eric Anderson, UC San Diego         {elsewhere}!ihnp4!ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdcc3!ewa
> Home: (619)453-7315       Work: (619)586-1201       White House: (202)456-1414

As a former employee of ETS (only part time), maybe I could help settle this
argument...

Getting an 800 usually mean the highest, but not necessarily a perfect, score.
It is true that in most cases, a perfect exam is required to get an 800
in the math part of the SAT.  But this is not the only way to get an 800--the
highest score, especially in the English part.  For example, if no one turns
in a perfect exam, say on the English part, on any given year (which is not
very unusual), the person(s) with the most number of correct answers will be
given an 800 and the rest will be curved/scaled accordingly.

					--Jae


"This is a test.  It is only a test.
Had it been a real life, you would
have been told where to go and what
to do."