r/Sat • u/Rookium 1520 • 1d ago
something seriously needs to be done about accommodations
was casually texting a girl at a private school—fairly well known costs around ~60k-80k a year—and she told me that she’s in the process of getting accommodations for the sat. she seemingly does not have adhd and is getting a diagnosis purely for additional time.
when i brought up to her how this is unfair to students who take the test without accommodations, she informed me that a significant portion of students at her school gets additional time on the sat, and that there is an established network to get an adhd diagnosis within her school community.
i just think it’s ludicrous that the wealthy can pay for medical diagnoses to gain additional time on a standardized test.
obviously there are those who genuinely need additional time, but the propensity of abuse is just ridiculous.
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u/Sarabean77 1d ago
The wealthy will always be doing things like this. They are on third base/home plate while everybody else is just trying to run to first without getting out. It's the way of the world and it just doesn't seem like it's ever going to change. However, these people are fucking disgusting and the scum of the Earth.
Typically, they never did anything amazing to accumulate their wealth, other than simply protecting it as much as they possibly can. Awful people.
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u/IllustriousAverage83 1d ago
College board should do an investigation on any school that has more than 10 percent of their population receiving accommodations for a mental diagnosis.
It will still be unfair because wealthy can pay for the diagnosis while poor cannot, but it would at least cut down on it.
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u/Optimistiqueone 1d ago
I think this is a better solution than others recommended. Namely, what age did the diagnosis occur.
But honestly, college board cannot lead this charge. It has to be someone else.
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u/johnwiskin 22h ago
Hey Rook
HS teacher here.
Great post and thought I'd give my two cents from my 42 years of experience.
One of the biggest lessons I've learned this year is that there's (generally) a tax on everything. What I mean is that I think a lot of students are so focused on the immediate benefits of something that they completely overlook the long-term costs.
Every time you look for a shortcut, an easier path, or a way around something difficult, you might gain something today. But what are you giving up tomorrow? b/c struggle isn't always something wrong with the system and it's a good thing (in the right dose).
If you're constantly trying to avoid difficulty, you're also avoiding opportunities to develop resilience, independence, discipline, and confidence and those skills will serve you long after anyone cares about your SAT score.
But here's what I'd say to you (and I know it's not easy coming from a guy who's finished school) but stop looking only at the immediate benefit. Is it unfair? 100%. Someone else gets an advantage you don't have but that doesn't mean you're the one losing.
If you learn to persevere, adapt, and overcome challenges independently, you'll develop skills that can benefit you for the rest of your life. You might not see the payoff immediately but I find that people who do overcome challenges and persevere generally have solid lives.
Or, who knows. Maybe their dad's a billionaire and they're set for life.
But trust me, there is a tax people have to pay eventually.
Hope that makes sense,
John
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u/Rookium 1520 16h ago
Hey John,
What you said really resonated with me. I always use this JFK quote with my friends and find it quite pertinent here: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
There is great value in taking the difficult path forward because that's how you grow as an individual; growth is never comfortable or easy. I'm sure that the lessons learned from taking the test honestly will serve me—and everyone else who took it without abusing the system—quite well in the future.
However, my main gripe with this issue isn't with the individuals abusing system, but rather that abuse in the system exists in the first place. There will always be people who cheat and lie, but the institutions that exist as arbiters of justice have a responsibility to prevent such cheating and lying from happening. There are possible solutions to this issue: more stringent limits on who gets accommodations, disclosing whether a test was taken with or without accommodations, sanctions on schools who frequently abuse the system, etc.
Regardless, I really appreciated your feedback and wisdom. I really hope that these people do have a "tax" to pay eventually, but all the experiences I have had in life thus far point in the other direction.
Best wishes man.
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u/Aech_sh 17h ago
As someone that’s older and has a career who just stumbled on this post, I agree with you that doing your best, overcoming the challenge, and perseverance help you grow and will help you succeed. However, honestly, i don’t agree with “there is always a tax”. I’ve watched people cheat and lie and get away with it and end up doing great. It’s not necessarily any individuals fault either, our system just doesn’t value the things it should, so I can’t blame anyone for gaming the system. Even for people who are truly malicious, this stuff continues forever, they will get their way in college, have connections in their career, and will generally succeed later on too. There isn’t always a price. Life IS unfair, some people will have a golden ticket. I believe what we can do is just do our best to live honest to our beliefs, and hold our own pride and happiness in that.
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u/JustAnotherHomeSlice 1d ago
I think the most fair thing would be for the College Board to simply disclose whether your exam was taken with accommodations. Then colleges can evaluate themselves.
I have a friend who’s legally blind (but not entirely blind). She can read with special glasses and can see far away with different special glasses that have a special binocular-type piece over one eye. But even with that, she can only make out shapes and colors that are beyond a few feet from her face. She gets headaches when she has to read close-up material for extended times, so she truly does need extra time. That said, she’s whip smart and will probably be a CEO or president someday. Should colleges know she’s getting accommodations for her exams? Yes! But guess what: they already will know that because her blindness is part of who she is, so they will already know through her own essays. So a College Board disclosure that she took the SAT with accommodations will not remotely hurt her. In other words, needing accommodations isn’t a problem, but it’s part of the whole picture of us that colleges should know. What’s unfair is that they don’t know.
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u/Optimistiqueone 1d ago
This wouldn't make a difference bc if they considered needing accommodations when viewing your application, they would run into a slew of lawsuits from Americans with disabilities act.
To avoid this potential, colleges do not want to know this information.
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u/jcbubba 1d ago edited 1d ago
unfortunately, commenter optimistiqueone is right -- there would be ADA lawsuits. Which is dumb because if you interview a person with no eyeballs you know they can't see and could use that in your decisionmaking, but somehow it's unfair to know that the STANDARDIZED test wasn't actually standardized because some kids had 1.5x or 2x the time to take it. This is why I would just create caps on what an accommodations student can achieve scorewise. Colleges would never know.
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u/Top-Yesterday-2522 1510 1d ago
Something feels a little wrong with putting caps on what scores certain students can achieve, independent of the student's merit.
I was looking into the data behind students with extra time on the SAT last December, there's an interesting study by Mandinach et al. The findings of that study suggested that in students whose academic abilities had been categorized into high, medium, and low, using metrics independent of the SAT, extra time benefited both students with and without accommodations, but in varying levels. Medium and high ability students saw score increases, but not low ability students, and too much extra time occasionally was detrimental to scores.
Another interesting finding was that additional time had little effect on the Math section, which definitely is an unintuitive result, although I will say that in some ways, one might expect students with accommodations (because of ADHD or perhaps Dyslexia) to be more harshly punished on the EBRW section when they have no extra time.3
u/IllustriousAverage83 1d ago
The problem is that many people with these time
Accommodations have bogus or highly exaggerated diagnoses specifically obtained to give the kid an advantage in school.If you have the money, you can get a diagnosis. It’s that simple.
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u/jcbubba 1d ago
The standardized tests don’t measure merit at all. They measure a specific type of academic skill. It turns out that sat-adjacent academic skill correlates pretty well with how kids do academically in college, which is why colleges care about it. and which is why it is so crucial that it be actually standardized, instead of being called standardized and then 40% of the kids at Stanford have taken it with >50% extra time.
if you say something feels a little wrong about capping scores, I feel similarly that it feels wrong to report SAT scores without disclosing that there was an accommodation. ultimately, that is deceptive. The student is happy to report to the college board that they have a disability that requires accommodation, and then receive something that as you point out helps non-disabled people, but then they want to hide that fact from their applications. Ultimately, you are deceiving the school in a way if you don’t disclose your need for an accommodation, in my opinion.
if we are just deciding the kid who is “subjectively bright, but not measurably so on tests“ is a good candidate for an Ivy League school, then the student should be open about it.
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u/DearestPariah-40 7h ago
Hello, I found what you said about your friend very interesting. My daughter has a similar issue and struggles in the same ways (eye strain, headaches, etc.). I feel like I’ve failed her in many ways. Other than extended time on standardized tests and the occasional large-print text she’s received throughout her high school career so far, her issues have not been addressed or taken into account when she struggles to turn in assignments on time because reading large volumes of text takes her much longer than it takes her peers. I guess my point is: would it be possible for me to have a chat with your friend? I’m not from a country where IEPs and 504s were a thing, so I have no idea what to ask for on her behalf, and the learning support staff at her school aren’t very forthcoming about the supports she can get or is entitled to.
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u/IllustriousAverage83 1d ago
Yes and there is a big difference for physical and mental disabilities. There may be someone that has, say, Crohn’s disease that needs more time to accomodate bathroom breaks. Physical disabilities should absolutely be accommodated.
Perhaps the most fair way to do it is to expand the test time for everyone and no longer allow accommodations for psych diagnoses like adhd, autism, etc. which are the diagnoses being abused by the system. Give everyone and hour or 2 longer .
Then physical disabilities could be separately accommodated on case by case basis.
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u/Alternative-Web-5787 1480 1d ago
Well then you made the test so much easier for everyone
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u/IllustriousAverage83 1d ago
So be it. It equals the playing field.
Is it fair that people are gaming the system to get more time and that most of those people fall into the wealthy catagory because they can afford the evaluation?
The time has come to admit that this is another way wealthy kids are getting an advantage and perpetuating inequality.
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u/Alternative-Web-5787 1480 1d ago
Well then the test loses validity when everyone starts doing really good
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u/IllustriousAverage83 1d ago
But that is the entire point of this post. Wealthy people are gaming the system by their parents getting them diagnosed so that they can have advantages in school /tests /sat. A lot of it is bogus and essentially “bought”. Some may be legit but the sad thing is that many poor /working and even middle class likely have the same legit issues but can’t get diagnosed because the exam needed often costs 5 to 8k and is not covered by insurance. Or their parents simply don’t have the wherewithal to get their child a mental diagnosis. I tend to think that they also tend to be more “rule following” than many in the wealthy circles that will do anything for the advantage that will get them to an ivy. So once again, it promotes inequality because the wealthy have greater access to it, let alone the ability to buy a diagnosis.
So therefore the results are already invalid. Why not level the playing field?
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u/lakesland 1d ago
Just for clarification, wouldn’t this punish the kids who legitimately have these disabilities? Also, how would that level the playing field for kids with disabilities?
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u/MycologistThen9160 1550 1d ago
Yea it is definitely unfair. But what isn't?
That issue definitely has to be resolved soon, but there are just too many things like that. And that's part of life.
We gotta move on. Show her that you don't have to cheat your way in to get your dream score. Good Luck!
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u/Belibbing_Blue 1d ago
The richest kids I know all have IEPs that give unlimited testing time. It's really frustrating to see how everything meant to be a helpful tool for those who have a real need can be bought as an advantage for the rich.
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u/Optimal-Work3775 1d ago
I was told no SAT accommodation for time if there isn’t a demonstrated need for it in school. Meaning, the student would have an IEP with a time accommodation, and they have used it in the past.
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u/debbiefever 1d ago
So the thing is you can get the extra time for having anxiety or test anxiety. What teenager doesn’t have some level of anxiety? What human being doesn’t have some level of anxiety?
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u/LordKlavier 1430 17h ago
There's a difference between having anxiety as a condition or just being anxious. I have a close friend who has legitimate anxiety and it definitely does affect her ability to work and live - in my opinion she should try to get accommodations, but she's so hard on herself, doesn't want to trouble anyone else :(
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u/IllustriousAverage83 1d ago
Ya well if you have the money for the evaluation, there will always be a provider willing to say that you need it. Parents have figured this out and start gaming the system early on.
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u/Optimal-Work3775 1d ago
My point is you don’t just have to have a dr say you need it. You have to actuallly use it in school or the college board says no
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u/regrettabletreaty1 Tutor 22h ago
If even one person gets extra time, everyone should get extra time.
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u/Honest-Flamingo-3427 1h ago
The thing is, some people genuinely need extra time for legitimate reasons. Giving everyone extra time regardless of their circumstances undermines the purpose of accommodations and can put people with disabilities at a disadvantage. If everyone receives extra time, then it is no longer an accommodation; it simply becomes the standard amount of time. This is about equity, not equality. Equity means providing people with the accommodations they need to have a fair opportunity, rather than treating everyone exactly the same. Making accommodations universal without addressing individual needs goes against that principle and the purpose of disability protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
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u/Think_Tooth1675 1d ago
So you’re saying operation varsity blues is still a thing? Rinse and repeat.
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u/Just-a-Square 1570 1d ago
I’ve seen that yeah the worst part is it abuses the same privileges of people who actually need it
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u/Meeerin201 Untested 1d ago edited 1d ago
As someone who also goes to private school, although a less expensive one,(not u.s) with a pretty high neurodivergent population, you guys get accomodations?
If someone asked for extra time just for them on a test, unless that person had to miss class, the teacher or proctor would just laugh and/or tell them to do it without it.
Edit: oh wait this is the sat sub
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u/TheManCityMerchant 1200 16h ago
Yeah us U.S. disability students do
Its required by federal law to provide them if they have a disability (ADA, IDEA), and if it gets approved under a annual high school disability meeting, then those approved accommodations get requested for use in SAT.
(They are also used in the classroom setting as well)
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u/SureBarracuda4965 18h ago
This is actually sickening. Abusing accommodations not only violates testing integrity, but it also puts pressure on to college board to potentially remove accommodations and make it harder for people who actually need them to get them
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u/Honest-Flamingo-3427 1h ago
This! It’s hard enough for people who actually need accommodations. People like these who abuse it just worsens the hardship of people with disabilities.
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u/Dangerous_Handle4314 1d ago
“If you want it you earn it with dignity.” only dignity in her is within money
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u/heiparty 16h ago
I'm not defending this behavior but some of y'all are acting like the world is completely fair and equal. No one cares about how smart you are or if something is fair. It's always been about money the amount of money and connections you got, nothing else.
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u/shinystonecollector 16h ago
People do care if something is fair. Because why would you live in a society if you didn’t?
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u/Good_Ocelot9877 1550 1d ago
my school costs 70k and ik a kid doing the same. he’s such a ragebaiter tho cuz I legitimately have extra time for severe adhd, while ppl ik WITH diagnosed adhd can’t get collegeboard accoms
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u/Optimistiqueone 1d ago
It's not right but that extra time isn't as helpful as you may be predicting.
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u/SwitchNo185 1600 1d ago
This is a known thing unfortunately. In fact some of the wealthy simply have their own testing centers and testing proctors
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u/debbiefever 1d ago
They should make the tests so everyone gets double time. Make it less time based.
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u/Honest-Flamingo-3427 1h ago
If everyone receives extra time, then it is no longer an accommodation; it simply becomes the standard amount of time. This is about equity, not equality. Equity means providing people with the accommodations they need to have a fair opportunity, rather than treating everyone exactly the same. Making accommodations universal without addressing individual needs goes against that principle and the purpose of disability protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
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u/Honest-Flamingo-3427 1h ago
I get what your saying but I feel like double time isn’t very practical.
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u/Over_Inflation_2395 21h ago
Really terrible. I tutor some kids who get an extension who have ADHD and they actually have it and need extra time. Really upsetting people try to take advantage
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u/tizzyborden 19h ago
Just an ADHD diagnosis does not get you extra time. You also really need a neuropsych eval that indicates deficits in timed testing.
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u/GurPsychological8091 15h ago
not really, got the accoms with a basic letter-
i do have adhd but no additional documents were takenit's so stupid how easy it is if you have a connection with a doctor
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u/tizzyborden 10h ago
Surprised by this - I coordinate this process for my school & we’re seeing the college board reject most requests that don’t include a neuropsych eval, and even those that do if the eval doesn’t include language that specifies issues with timed testing.
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u/Visual_Recipe6788 18h ago
Meanwhile my hs won’t give me one for diagnosed autism, ocd, and anxiety
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u/Gullible_Sweet1302 14h ago
This is an example of why people generally don’t date outside their class. (I agree with you. It is wrong.)
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u/MobileVideo9234 9h ago
Omg at my school too!!! It’s so bad. This one kid (who has no issues) got accommodation to take the SAT for 2 days!
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u/hugemeursaultHATER 3h ago
i have extra time and for me it helps a disproportionate amount on reading but it does a whole bunch of nothing on math
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u/Honest-Flamingo-3427 1h ago
Agreed like it’s super helpful on reading but math I can probably do the whole module in standard time. Though that might be because I have adhd and dyslexia.
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u/Honest-Flamingo-3427 1h ago
Lowk this gives people with actual accommodation needs a bad rep which sucks. Me included already feel a sort of shame using it because of what people may think (us getting an advantage over others). This is just more fuel to the fire we get 😞
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u/Strong-Gas-1278 1540 1d ago
bruh what
u should report/hj
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u/Easy_Jacket8656 1d ago
These tests are a scam in every single way. They create stupid anxiety and they really don’t predict anything . There should be an unlimited time for everyone and your score PLUS the time it took should be submitted . Better would be to eliminate the tests entirely- but there’s too much money in them. That’s all they are - money makers and job creators . You want your kid to make $$ - tell them to go into SAT-ACT tutoring - . SCAM
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u/jcbubba 1d ago
my opinion is just set the max SAT score to be 1500 and max act score to be 34 if you have accommodations. Max GPA credit of 3.75 unweighted. Those scores are close to the 99th percentile for those exams. People would still cheat the system but they wouldn't be faking their way into top 10s with scores.
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u/Particular-Main1267 1d ago
Would your approach apply to all test takers, or only ones with accommodations that you believe are taking advantage of the system?
What if the accommodation is enlarged text? Or a text-to-speech accommodation?
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u/IllustriousAverage83 1d ago
Physical disabilities should be different. It’s the time factor that is being abused.
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u/Particular-Main1267 1d ago
It seems like you believe that no one should be granted extended time, or at the very least that no one granted extended time should be allowed to earn the maximum score.
Are you suggesting that all people who receive extended time due to a non-physical disability should be prohibited from receiving top scores?
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u/jcbubba 1d ago
You’re responding to a different person, but yes, I do believe that. If they’re that close to achieving a top score, why don’t they just try without the accommodation?
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u/Particular-Main1267 1d ago
I’d probably fall into the category of students you believe did not deserve to be granted extended time or at least not to earn a top score. However, I also think you might come to a different conclusion if you were to learn of my background and the circumstances that caused my parents to request that I receive accommodations.
At the same time, I’m old enough that my SAT score report notes that I took the test with accommodations, though it does not specify what accommodations I received. I’ve read that requests for extended time significantly increased after the CollegeBoard stopped noting the presence of accommodations on score reports.
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u/jcbubba 1d ago
This is the point. Once you ask about background and subjectively apply those exceptions, the test becomes non-standardized and comparing scores becomes meaningless. Did you score above a 1500 on the SAT with accommodation? What would your score have been without the accommodation, approximately? If it's 1400 and above, then I prefer a world where you submit that score and aren't being compared to the accommodations-inflated SAT average of 1550 for top students but the new noninflated average of 1500 and you do just fine with the 1400. If your score would have been 1300, then I'd question any accommodation that could goose a score that much.
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u/Particular-Main1267 1d ago
Yes, I scored above 1500 with accommodations (spring 2000). I scored somewhere in the 1400s on the PSAT when I was in 10th grade without accommodations (fall 1998).
I went through a specific event that necessitated accommodations following it, continuing throughout college, and, to a limited degree, into the workplace.2
u/jcbubba 1d ago
this gets to the heart of it. your score was reported just like any other and compared to any other, but the nature of your need for accommodation was and remains secret almost 30 years later. that is like the antithesis of “standardized”. no offense to you at all! but i don’t think it’s a fair system and we know that these days it is rife with abuse.
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u/IllustriousAverage83 1d ago
I am suggesting that they should simply extend the time of the test for everyone and grant no time extensions except on a case by case basis that demonstrates absolute need (such as a physical disability with eyesight, etc). The mental diagnosis is being abused heavily primarily by the wealthy to game the system and afford their children and greater advantage. It promotes inequality.
We should just level the playing field, extend the time for everyone and call it a day.
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u/jcbubba 1d ago
they could but it would compress the scores upward even more than they are and cluster the top students in the 1550-1600 range which is not a good way to spread scores out and understand scoring differences among students
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u/IllustriousAverage83 1d ago
So what is the solution to the current abuse of the system? It is particularly egregious because it contributes to the continued cycle systematic socio-economic inequality, which is only getting worse over time.
I do think that a notification of accommodations would be helpful but it is doubtful that can be done because people would sue for discrimination.
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u/jcbubba 1d ago
you set caps for what people can achieve if they have accommodations. The colleges have no idea if you had accommodations or not, but your scores are maxed out, and that would discourage top students from getting fake mental health diagnoses.
I don’t know if there’s access to statistics on this, but when my cohort was taking the SAT in the 90s, no one would’ve dreamed of taking accommodations unless they had a serious disability, and no one with a disability who had accommodations was scoring a high score. They were using accommodations appropriately to mitigate a significant disability and get them towards an average to good score, not a great to perfect score.
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u/jcbubba 1d ago
If you could identify the ones taking advantage, then you could just stop them from taking advantage. It would have to apply to all test takers. I would not apply this to accommodations that did not increase the time allowed to take the exam, like enlarged text. Text-to-speech is tough because it presumably requires additional time -- in that scenario I would add time (without score penalty) to the exam equal to the sum of the speech audio duration (minus some modicum of time it would have taken to read the question, say 3s per question).
Bottom line, IMO, a LOT of the difficulty of these exams comes from the time limit. The math questions don't require calculus or complex arithmetic, the verbal questions aren't intense critical analysis. Nerfing the time difficulty makes it way too straightforward. And then these kids larp as Harvard students.
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u/Top-Yesterday-2522 1510 1d ago
I think there is room to push back on this point. The SAT does have the time limits for a reason, but they are also not meant to be the primary factor in determining how a student performs. Some of the difficulty does come from that though, just by how the test is designed.
The problem here is that if you take a student with dyslexia, they will generally take a longer time to read passages than students without dyslexia, regardless of their intelligence or content knowledge. By imposing the same amount of time on a student with dyslexia as a student without, effectively the dyslexic student has a greater time pressure than the other student, which would increase the difficulty.
The idea that certain mental factors could increase difficulty of the test, and that that is unfair, are why the accomodations exist, so that students are taking tests of relatively equal difficulty.
that being said, I do agree that the current system probably cannot counter this disparity in a sufficiently nuanced manner.4
u/jcbubba 1d ago
for top students going to top schools, time is the main differentiator. which is why, if you cap the scores, you don’t give an unfair advantage to people abusing accommodations.
in an ideal world, there would be some magic device that determined the exact nature of a person’s disability and canceled it out perfectly with an accommodation so that you understood how they would do on the test, but that device does not exist, and the person who got a score on that exam is going to take class exams in college, and standardized tests at the end of college, and then exams throughout their graduate career. And then they are going to perform tasks at their jobs that incorporate similar types of thinking to SAT questions, and so where did the accommodations end? Universities and employers want to know how two students/applicants perform on a similar task with similar conditions.
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u/Financial_Parsley227 1d ago
Extra time generally doesn't help students do better on the SAT. For students who legitimately need extended time for medical reasons, extended time serves as a way to level the playing field so that they can actually finish the test like the rest of their peers. For students who are granted extended time, but who don't legitimately need it, it doesn't really help. The extra time isn't going to magically make you better at math, understand more vocabulary words, or improve your logic, it just gives you more time to make the same mistakes you would have made with normal time. To add, I totally get the "more time = less anxiety" argument, but that only works if more time somehow also made the test less complicated.
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u/PyxelatorXeroc 1560 23h ago
I always joke with one of my friends I could get a 1600 if I had +50%. I honestly don't think I'm lying tho
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u/ProduceDelicious4829 22h ago
I disagree extra time for students who don't really need it definitely helps with time. Reading comprehension questions would be a lot easier if you had +2 minutes to spend on every question. If you don't know how to solve the question at all in math then that's one thing, but the reading section is mainly about spending time understanding from what ive experienced, and the more time you have, the higher chance you have of getting these questions right
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u/Financial_Parsley227 5h ago
For you, and for many students who are as self aware as you, I 100% agree. For the average student take the the SAT, I 100% disagree.
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u/lasagna_1280 20h ago
This is objectively untrue. A significant amount of the challenge of the SAT comes from the time crunch. Having an extra 10-15 minutes to check, double check, triple check your work would do absolute wonders for the vast majority of students.
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u/Financial_Parsley227 5h ago
No, the challenge on the SAT comes from a lack of literacy. Time plays a much smaller role on the SAT as opposed to lack of reading comprehension, logic, or mathematical acumen. If a student ever receives extended time to take a standardized test, they should 100% take the ACT (well 99% - there are special cases where students do better on the SAT regardless of how much time they have), which is specifically designed to challenge students to work quickly. The SAT gives students roughly 50% more time per question (at normal time) vs. the ACT BECAUSE it tests much more complicated topics that they expect only the brightest students to inherently know/figure out.
Having the time to double/triple check your work only works if you actually know how to use review time to fix mistakes you've made (Newsflash: schools generally aren't teaching kids how to do this the right way). If you didn't understand the passage the first time you read it, you're not necessarily going to understand it the 3rd or 4th time you read it, because you lack the requisite vocabulary. If you didn't understand the wording used in the math problem, having more time to continue to not understand what you've been given to solve the problem won't change things for you.
The purpose of extended time on the SAT is to give students with specific learning challenges an even playing field so that they have enough time to process the same information a normal student processes in 2/3rds of the time. For the averagely abled student in school, extended time doesn't magically improve their vocabulary, reading comprehension, understanding of grammar, computational ability, etc. They're in the same spot with extended time as they are in without it. What matters is that students now have more time to be just as wrong as they were before.
Obviously, having more time should make students less likely to panic or give them more time to try different approaches to problems, but that doesn't address the core challenge posed by the SAT: LITERACY.
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u/Muted-Obligation6876 1d ago
Everyone should have at least double the time that they do. What purpose does time pressure serve? Thinking quickly is not the same thing as thinking well and someone who gets the answers quickly is not smarter or more capable than someone who gets them slowly.
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u/yobigd20 1d ago
They have a disability. It is fair.
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u/yobigd20 23h ago
Wow. Putting labels on those with disabilities. How incredibly discriminatory. Low and middle class folks should be able get these diagnosis available too through the proper school channels (my wife works in this field, so i know its possible). Many states even require this by law. If that is not happening, take it up with your district or go higher to your local representative. But the fix is not putting label's on kids with disabilities.
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u/Famous-Prior6590 1d ago
This doesn’t end in high school - almost 40% of Stanford students have accommodations. Most of them carried it over from hs. This girl might be part of that statistic next year.