kitchen table math, the sequel: guessing hurts, part 2

Sunday, February 27, 2011

guessing hurts, part 2

I'm looking at page 499 in the Blue Book.

There are 67 questions on the 3 Critical Reading sections.

If you answer 64 questions correctly and leave 3 questions blank, you score 800.

If you answer 64 questions correctly and answer the other 3 questions incorrectly, you score 780.

That is a big penalty.

I follow the logic of the penalty for wrong answers. It's a correction for guessing.

But the 1/4 point deduction over-corrects because in reality students don't make random guesses. In reality, they systematically guess the wrong answer. At least, that's what I see with C.

I'm telling C. not to make any guesses at all.

I'll let you know how that goes.

8 comments:

Crimson Wife said...

Boy, the "recentering" really changed the scoring on the verbal section! I got a single question wrong and was knocked down to a 750.

Anonymous said...

This, and other reasons, are why I like the ACT better.

SusanS

Catherine Johnson said...

Which test are you taking?

The 2nd edition of the Blue Book says you can get 3 or 4 wrong & get an 800.

(Are you thinking about the test you took for college?)

Catherine Johnson said...

I should try taking a sample ACT.

C. didn't do any better on the ACT sample than on the SAT.

Did better on PSAT than on ACT PLAN, as I recall.

Crimson Wife said...

Yep, I was referring to when I took the pre-recentered SAT back in '94. Missing a single question was then enough to go from an 800 down to a 750. I don't know what I would've gotten had I skipped one rather than answering incorrectly, but it still wouldn't have been an 800.

Catherine Johnson said...

oh - I remember that!

Right.

Now you can miss around .... is it 3?

Something like that (but let me check).

Catherine Johnson said...

I'm feeling proud because I dug out my ACT book, flipped the pages to a "challenging" algebra problem, and solved it instantly.

Anonymous said...

The ACT just seems to be less tricky to me. The math is elementary algebra, algebra 1 and 2, and then a few trig questions.

And you're not penalized for guessing.

And it's a bit shorter.

SusanS