Hi! Got home last night, and have a full few days, heck, weeks, catching up, etc, ahead of me, but dropped by to see what happened to cause so many hundreds of posts to have been generated here since my last peek in, and came across the SAT discussion, which is so interesting and complex, and to which I have no answer.
W/o reading all the exchanges, I'm commenting on a couple of things anyway. One is about the guzzle analogy that was missed by a lot of Hispanics. The other is the generic question of changing questions and tests so that particular groups perform better on them.
I assume the right answer on the guzzle question is wolf. Which, since 'wolf' used as a verb is an uncommon usage in the dumbed-down vocabulary world, makes it not too surprising that a body of people containing a disproportionate membership of individuals with an English-vocabulary disadvantage, would think, "It can't be wolf, that's an animal."
That doesn't answer the question of whether the test should be re-tailored to accommodate such disadvantages, but it does offer an explanation for a non-innate-ability reason for the question flummoxing more Hispanics than others.
I wonder how first or second generation Asians or other races or ethnicities with an English vocab disadvantage did on that question. That seems a fair question to me.
I must say, though, that it seems unfair to me to eliminate all of the advantage anyone gets from reading a lot, and thus acquiring a larger vocabulary.
A very relevant P.S. follows... |
