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為了證明“為什么校友會是強大的”有一個這樣的傳說：一些高校招生部門的決策者已經(jīng)對SAT的現(xiàn)狀很不滿意，它是如何被管理的？一個學生的學術能力較差的指標？SAT作為大學之后成功的關鍵因素為何變得越來越不靠譜？還有一個更有爭議的問題，它在不同經(jīng)濟階層的學生之間產(chǎn)生差異。還有一個更具爭議的問題，許多來自行業(yè)巨頭有影響力的校友會說服招生部門的決策者去給College Board施壓，最終College Board妥協(xié)了因為威脅剔除掉SAT作為招生標準的學校實在太強大了：他們包括哈佛，耶魯以及20所其它院校。
SAT -具有諷刺的是雖然名稱上翻譯成中文是學術性測試，事實上絕不是“學究式”的。這場考試唯一可能轉變成“學術性”的是—如果學生實際上都是初中生，并且想進入8年級(國內的初二)，但這個假設并不適合真實的情況。請問這種考試為什么是“學術性考試”呢？畢竟它問了一堆數(shù)學難題（嚴格來說屬于腦筋急轉彎的類型)，問你如何使用“munificent”在一個填空句中,或要求你證明一條語法規(guī)則，連英語為母語者都從不關心這些更何況考SAT的時候呢？
有許多統(tǒng)計的數(shù)據(jù)支持和證明SAT是一種非常欠缺合理性的學生能力測試方法。這個觀點來自于一個真正擅長SAT的人（你們的AndyZ老師，我?。?，并且我更擅長讓別人變?yōu)镾AT的高分者。盡管如此，我仍然覺得這種考試形式非常過時，雖然它去年做出了一些改變。
有許多變化（共8個）出現(xiàn)在去年新推出的SAT，這些新的變化，根據(jù)美國College Board的設計來講，希望與美國教育制度的學生在日常高中課程學到的內容更一致，更加透明，最重要的是，不要讓經(jīng)濟差距成為分開高分和平庸分數(shù)的關鍵因素。當然啦，我對最后一點持極大的懷疑態(tài)度，因為我仍然認為那些能夠付出金錢上代價的人最終會占上風，除非未來幾年我能看到結果才能說服我，畢竟以目前新SAT推出來的現(xiàn)狀來講，根本就毫無變化。不管怎樣，讓AndyZ老師先介紹一下這些SAT的變化…
首先，我想先說下2個真真正正吸引我眼球的變化！首先，如果你猜錯答案的話，你再不會被懲罰-每道題錯的話不會再扣額外的1/4分。哇塞，真的假的？你們知道嗎，如果這種變化放在我們當年的話，我敢肯定我也會猜到一些，可以沖向幾乎滿分了！我覺得去年參加新SAT以及即將參加接下來幾年的SAT考試的人都是這項改革的受益者，你們太幸運了！
這項改革導致的影響就是，學生不應該留下任何問題空白題，這意味著他們現(xiàn)在可以嘗試給出最恰當?shù)拇鸢?，而不必擔心被扣?/4分。事實上，我認為學生在任何考試上都不應該留下任何答案空白，我希望這篇文章的100%學生讀者能遵守這一點。
下一個變化是我認為可以緩解大多數(shù)亞洲和中國學生巨大的壓力，就是是你不需要再去記考試后永遠不會再聽到的單詞。相反，大多數(shù)新的SAT需要的詞匯都是在SAT考試期間和大學畢業(yè)之后才會使用，至少要斷斷續(xù)續(xù)地使用?？忌鷮⒈灰蠼忉寙卧~基于文章語境的內涵，這意味著使用卡片學習(flashcards)不再是最好的選擇，學生需要有充分的把握。就我個人而言，我認為這個改變早就應該到來了，不再讓學生們在晦澀難懂的詞上苦苦掙扎，而所用的詞匯想必是將來你會再次使用的詞匯。
我能感覺到ETS和College Board正在努力創(chuàng)造有效的變化，但不能改變事實就是新的SAT只是“換湯不換藥”，整個格局和目的需要徹底的顛覆和改革能從真正意義上使學生發(fā)揮到極限，以及可以作為一個真正能評估學生的能力的標準。至目前為止，我對SAT的想法是-“我覺得不行！”
——————————以下為Andy老師英文原稿——————————
Why did the SAT change its format?
To prove a point why alumni associations are powerful, there is a legend that goes like this: a number of universities’ admissions department decision-makers were already very unhappy with the current state of the SAT, how it is being administered, a poor indicator of a student’s scholastic ability, how the SAT is becoming increasingly unreliable as a co-relational factor with success in college and thereafter, and the more controversial issue, the disparity it is creating between students of different socioeconomic strata. To further inflame things, many influential alumni, who form some of the biggest employment powerbrokers persuaded the admissions decision-makers to then pressure College Board, which eventually relented as the caliber of schools that were threatening to remove its admissionscriteria was far too powerful: they included Harvard, Yale and 20 others.
The SAT, which ironically stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test, is anything but “scholastic”. The only that is “scholastic” about this test is if the students were actually all middle school students and looking to enter grade 8, which is certainly not the case here. How is it a scholastic test when it is asking for a bunch of mathematical brainteasers, asking you what the word “munificent” means in a fill in the blank sentence or asking you to prove a grammar rule that no native speaker ever cares about except for SAT purposes?
There are many statistics and figures that support and show the SAT is not an ideal method of testing for a student’s capabilities, and this is coming from someone who is really adept at it and even better at turning others to become SAT high-achievers. Still, this form of exam is still extremely outdated in spite of all the changes it made last year.
There are many changes (8 in total) that should be noted in the new SAT that?was released?in 2016, all these new changes are designed so according to College Board, makes the SAT more aligned with high school curricula, more transparent and most importantly, not let economic disparity be a divisive factor between achieving a high and mediocre score. Then again, I am skeptical on the last point as I stillthinkthose who can pay will ultimately still prevail unless I see the results?in the next few years?to believe it, because certainly based on the evidence so far, it hasn’t been the case. Anyway, onto the SAT changes now…
For starters, I would like to go over 2 of the changes that REALLY caught my eye! First, no longer will you be deducted points for guessing the wrong answers. No way! Seriously, if this was allowed back in my day, I’m pretty sure I would’ve guessed a few. I think students who are?already took the new?SAT?last year?as well as in the immediate subsequent years?are the biggest beneficiaries of this, you guys are so lucky!
The implications of this now is that students should never leave any questions blank and it means that they can now try and give the most appropriate answer without the worry of being penalized 1/4 marks. In fact, no student should now leave any answer blank and I expect 100% of the readers of this article to comply with this.
The next change that I think will be a massive stress reliever to most?Asian?and Chinese?students is that you no longer are required to memorize words that you will never hear again in an eternity. Instead, most of thevocabularyfort the new SATarewords they are going to use again, at least intermittently, between finishing their take of the SAT and beyond college. Test takerswill be asked to interpret the connotationsof wordsbased on the context of the passage, which means using flashcards is no longer the best way to gobecause students will need to have full grasp of this.Personally, I think this change is long overdue, no longer will you have students struggling hours over obscure words, rather all the words that will be used are presumably words that you will use again in the future.
I can feel that ETS and College Board are trying real hard to create effectual changes, but it doesn’t change the fact that this new SAT is just an“old wine in a new bottle”, the entire format and purpose needs to be revolutionized completely to actually make an impact in bringing the best of students and functioning as a true diagnostic of their abilities. So for now, I give this a thumbs down!
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Andy的簡介：
- Multicultural and multilingual: Grew up and lived in a number of countries, American-born Chinese -（Third Culture Kid）多文化和多語言:在多個國家成長和居?。幻兰A人-典型第三文化人士(TCK)
- Leader in empowering corporate training and recruitment professionals with assessment methodologies and project-based learning andragogy為企業(yè)培訓和招聘人士提供領先評估體系和游戲化的項目式學習的職場教學法的領袖
- Decade of experience in education and training, and expert in China十年以上的學生教育和企業(yè)培訓的經(jīng)驗:并被很多本土和國外人士稱為“中國通”
- Regular community event organizer with expertise in workplace gamification for employees定期社區(qū)活動的組織者:游戲化員工體系的主題
- UC Berkeley Alumni Club Ex-Leader and Recruitment Ambassador畢業(yè)于世界名校加州伯克利大學并擔任校友俱樂部前任負責人和前任招生大使
- Third-party Interviewer for College Admissions美國第三方面試官(很多大學現(xiàn)在需要學生在提交申請書與第三方機構進行面試)
- Helped build a number of college admissions counseling departments負責搭建多個海外升學指導中心
- Unlike most “education experts”, personally attended more than a dozen schools growing up and personally went through the AP, IB, British, Singaporean and Hong Kong education systems相比其他所謂的“教育專家”，從小上過十幾所學校，親自體驗過AP、IB、英國、新加坡和香港的教育制度
- Recently, created China’s first bilingual entrepreneurial and innovation educational events organization: Center for Youth Business Facilitation
在這一兩年間，建立了中國第一個雙語創(chuàng)新創(chuàng)業(yè)學習的活動平臺: CYBF創(chuàng)習國際交流中心
