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A Broken Tool Paper

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A Broken Tool
Annually more than a million high school students take the Educational Testing Service's SAT I, one of the most used college entrance exams. The test consists of two parts, verbal and math, each scored on a 200-800 point scale. Most of the test questions are composed of multiple choice questions. The SAT is designed exclusively to predict student’s first year college grades. A major issue that needs to be addressed is the complex bias encompassed by the SAT. Throughout both high school and college females consistently earn higher grades than males, yet they consistently score lower on both the math and verbal tests on the SAT. This shows that there is a sex bias in this college entrance exam. Partial question construction, a …show more content…

The ETS (educational testing service) noticed this and decided to make the verbal section more balanced in favor of males. They added subjects that typically, males found more interesting such as politics, business and sports on the verbal section. Since then, males outscored females consistently on both the verbal and math sections of the test. This placed the females at a greater disadvantage because no effort was made to make the math section equally balanced. This shows that when females display a sense of advanced performance, it is viewed as “bias” against males. When males score higher, however, the testing services make no effort to reconstruct the test so to eliminate any bias one gender may have over the …show more content…

This exam can be considered “misused” because many factors carry an eminent bias based on the predisposition of gender. Females usually outperform males in college and high school yet they are being outscored by males on this test. A study conducted by ETS researchers Howard Wainer and Linda Steinberg argues that annually, males score 33 points higher on the math section than females. These same females scored higher or same grades in the same math classes they take with males in high school. The SATs have always been biased against females because it has been changed in favor for the males. This test plays a major role in the life of every high school student and in which their futures rely. It is a broken tool for predicting college performance because it is constantly favored to one

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