AP nixes guessing penalty. SAT next?

Beginning in May 2011, the College Board will eliminate the ‘guessing penalty’ for AP exams.

Under the old College Board policy, AP scores were based on the total number of correct answers minus a fraction for every incorrect answer—one-third of a point for questions with four possible answers and one-fourth of a point for questions with five possible answers. AP students were trained to work the odds by eliminating one or more possible answers and then making an “educated guess.” In fact, the College Board traditionally supported this strategy saying, “…if you have SOME knowledge of the question, and can eliminate one or more answer choices, informed guessing from among the remaining choices is usually to your advantage.”

The College Board similarly applies a 1/4 point guessing penalty for each incorrect SAT multiple choice answer, so it’s not a stretch to assume that a change AP scoring may presage a change in SAT scoring down the road:

Robert Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, said he viewed it as significant that the College Board was changing any policy related to guessing, since the organization has argued since the 1950s that a penalty was needed. He said he looked forward to seeing how the College Board would justify having one policy for AP and another for the SAT.

For the moment, the College Board maintains a studiously ambiguous stance on the prospects of change in SAT scoring policy:

As for the SAT, the College Board spokeswoman indicated that the change is being announced only for AP. “The SAT Program has no immediate plans to change scoring processes, and will keep the public informed if that position changes,” she said.

I wouldn’t exactly call that a firm statement in support of the existing SAT scoring system. Would you?

The sudden impetus for the change may come from the increased popularity of the ACT, which does not use a guessing penalty:

Schaeffer also said that the guessing penalty is “a major competitive disadvantage for the SAT” vs. the ACT. “While the ACT is not a better test in any psychometric sense, the lack of a guessing penalty is one of the ways it is more consumer-friendly,” he said.

Although I agree with Mr. Schaeffer that the lack of a guessing penalty most likely contributes to the ACT’s increasing popularity, I do not believe the difference in scoring policy is purely cosmetic.

The SAT’s guessing penalty distorts the test’s ability to evaluate student performance accurately because it makes the test more about evaluating a student’s level of self-confidence, and less about evaluating his or her level of actual knowledge..

With the guessing penalty in play, it’s not enough just to choose an answer. For each question, the student also has to decide whether he or she is confident enough in the choice to risk a quarter point reduction for being wrong. This extra layer of decision making tends to discourage less assertive students, who will often shy away from those questions whose answers they are not wholly sure of, including questions where they would otherwise guess correctly were it not for their fear of the guessing penalty.

This means that in practice , the guessing penalty favors the bold, guessing student over the more cautious, selective student – exactly the opposite outcome from what the guessing penalty is supposed to accomplish.

Studies suggest that the guessing penalty may also contribute to the persistent lag in the SAT performance of female test takers (especially in Math).

Research indicates that males are more likely to take risks on the test and guess when they do not know the answer, whereas females tend to answer the question only if they are sure they are correct. Unwillingness to make educated guesses on this exam has been shown to have a significant negative impact on scores.

The ACT does not have a guessing penalty, which may be one reason why the gender gap on that test is much smaller.

In my own teaching experience, I find that female SAT students often display a greater tendency to skip a question when they are not completely sure of the answer – even when the answer they would have picked turns out be the correct one. These less assertive students lose points they would otherwise earn were there no guessing penalty to discourage them from answering – points more assertive students earn even though they may have no better understanding of why a particular answer is correct.

Bottom line: if and when the College Board finally does away with the SAT guessing penalty, it will be doing itself and its test takers a big favor – not only because it will make the SAT more ‘consumer friendly’ but also, and more importantly, because it will help SAT scoring better reflect each student’s true level of academic performance rather than his or her level of self-confidence.

2008-09 SAT Practice Test conversion tables

Here are the raw to scaled score conversion tables for the 2008-09 Official SAT Practice Test for each subject. This test was also an actual SAT given in October 2005.

In addition to listing the straight conversion tables, I have also added the raw score point percentages for each scaled score. For instance, to get a scaled score of 600 on the Critical Reading subject for this test, you need 46 raw score points. With 67 total raw score points available on Critical Reading, a raw score of 46 translates into 69% (46/67) of the total points available.

Please also note that the Writing subject includes only raw score conversions for the multiple choice portion, and does not include effects of the essay on the scaled score (more on this later).

For more on how your raw score is determined for each subject, see here.

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Never let your answer sheet affect your answer choices

Students often ask whether they should go back and change previous answers if the same answer choice  letter appears multiple times in a row.

The simple answer is  NO.   Here’s why.

Take a look at this answer sheet from Section 5 (Writing) of the 2006 Official SAT Practice Test, which was also the actual October 2005 SAT):

Six straight D’s, but only one of these answers is incorrect.

Here are the correct answers:

See that? Five out of the six ‘D’ answer choices is correct. What’s more, D is also the correct answer on question 31 (not shown).

The SAT often repeats the same answer choice multiple times in a row (basically because the test makers know that students like to try to ‘game’ their answer sheets this way), so you are only asking for trouble by changing an answer because you think it can’t be the same letter yet again.

Because the SAT often repeats the same answer choice multiple times, never try to game your answers based on how they appear on your answer sheet. Even if you get the same answer five or six times in a row, do NOT change your answer choices to try to balance out your answer sheet. It could be that you have only missed one question out of the six, and hunting for that one incorrect answer wastes valuable time you should be using to answer the rest of the questions.

A better strategy is to just keep working through the rest of the section, while circling in your test booklet (never on your answer sheet!) the numbers of any questions you are not sure of. Then, if you have time left over after you get through the whole section once, go back and review those circled questions again.

Remember:

If you decide to change an answer choice, always be sure you have a reason other than simply how it appears on your answer sheet.

From my SAT training guide: SAT Unlocked.