High Life A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : SAT Issue Tests Nerve : Bias Charges Add to Students’ Anxieties

The mere mention of the Scholastic Aptitude Test can unnerve even the coolest of high school seniors hoping to gain admission to the nation’s elite universities.

Referred to as the SAT, it is a “three-hour, multiple-choice test that measures the verbal and mathematical abilities you have developed over the years,” or so says the SAT and Achievement Test bulletin published by the College Board, an organization of 2,500 colleges, universities and secondary schools that sponsors the test.

In recent years, questions have been raised about the SAT’s possible bias against women and minorities.

Some students find that such accusations add to test-taking fears.

“It’s really nerve-racking,” said Jennifer Henderson, a junior at Irvine High School. “There’s no guarantee that you’ll even do good then (if there is bias).”

Last year’s SAT results showed that white students nationally gained two points on their SAT scores to 937--averaging 200 points higher than blacks, whose scores were unchanged from the previous year at 737.

Each portion of the test--verbal and mathematical--includes a possible 800 points.

“The overall SAT average is misleading,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig in an interview last year. “Blacks, Asian-Americans, Hispanics and whites have improved their performance significantly.”

Honig attributed a drop in the overall average SAT scores for California students (down two points with average verbal scores at 422 and math scores at 484; nationally, average verbal scores dropped a point to 427 and math scores were unchanged at 476) to an increased number of students taking the test, with many schools working hard to prepare minority students for college.

Some say the difference between test scores is reason enough to believe the exam’s questions are biased, but College Board administrators don’t agree.

“It’s not biased,” said Anne Buckley, assistant director of public affairs for the College Board, who maintains that the scoring disparity is a direct correlation to the types of classes students took in high school.

“It (the test) shows the inequities which exist in education,” Buckley said from her office in New York. “Women tend not to take as many years of math as males. There’s a direction relation between the years of study and the scores.”

On the average, boys take more college preparatory courses than do girls, Buckley said. Consequently, they develop stronger academic backgrounds and tend to score higher on the test.

But Julio Kidder disagrees. Kidder is the Irvine-based SAT coordinator for the Princeton Review, a private, 60-hour SAT preparation course that is the largest in the country.

“Women get higher GPAs (grade-point averages) on the average,” Kidder said. “If the SAT is supposed to be an indicator of scholastic aptitude, they’re not doing a good job.”

The Princeton Review, one of the most outspoken critics of the SAT, has consistently locked horns over such issues as gender bias with the Educational Testing Service, the company that drafts the SAT.

But money is also a factor.

“Where the money is, is where you will find the highest results,” said Paul Kanareck, Orange County’s program director for Princeton Review. “It’s not fair to the lower socioeconomic students (who can’t afford preparation courses). . . .”

He said that “too much worth” is put on the test.

Lisa Lau, a senior at Irvine, has taken the SAT twice and is a graduate of the Princeton Review course.

“They told us that male Caucasians on the East Coast have significantly higher scores than all other people,” Lau said. “They (the Princeton Review) believe it’s just the way the test is designed, not the actual questions. While I took the test, I didn’t find anything strange, but I wasn’t looking for it either.”

The Educational Testing Service says that all questions on the SAT have undergone careful study so as to remain neutral.

“They are reviewed by an ethnically and racially diverse panel of test experts,” Buckley said. “We do our own research and hundreds of university and college studies. A three-year study by the National Academy of Sciences Committee and the United Negro College Fund reviews the test.”

Agnes Huang, an Irvine junior who took the SAT in March, still believes the test is unfair.

“The SAT is biased against blacks, Hispanics and all other minorities,” Huang said.

“Many of the SAT words are specific to our American culture,” she said. “For example, once on the SAT there was a word that is used in the sport of sailing . . . regatta. I think you can agree that only an esoteric group of people would know the term regatta. This kind of discrimination has occurred on many SATs. In all actuality, I’m just sitting back and accepting it. I don’t think it will change.”

Buckley said changes, if and when they are needed, are made.

The question testing students’ knowledge of the relationship between yacht and regatta was dropped after critics protested that it was biased toward teen-agers in upper-class families.

Steven Graff helps design and produce the SAT. The New York-based senior project director for the New Possibilities Project of the Admissions Testing Program believes the SAT questions are designed with college admissions programs in mind.

“It (test results) should help a college understand how a student will fit in according to the college’s academic expectations,” Graff said.

James E. Dunning, director of admissions at UC Irvine, said, “Sixty percent of freshmen admissions are based on indices derived from correlations between high school GPA, test scores, courses and a sophomore year performance of previous UCI freshmen.”

Still, Henderson, who took the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test twice, does not believe the tests to be accurate predictors of ability.

“I don’t think I dropped in intelligence during the year,” she said, “but I went down 200 points the second time I took the test.” During that same time, Henderson said, her GPA improved a half point.

But Buckley offers some encouraging words: “We’re not advocating that college admissions look solely at the SAT. We recommend (that they) take into account the SAT with the high school record, but neither should be taken by itself as a predictor.”

While the issue of bias may never be answered to everyone’s satisfaction, perhaps the best approach to the SAT is Henderson’s: “I’m just going to try as hard as I can when I take the test.”

The SAT is administered seven times per academic year, and students can take it as often as they please for a fee of $14.50 each time. The next test date is June 2.