One complaint you often hear about standardized tests is that they’re racist or sexist. The complaint is usually framed this way:

The average score of group X is higher than the average score of group Y, so the test must be biased against group Y in favor of group X.

This argument is used to show that standardized tests are skewed in favor of men over women, or in favor of whites over blacks and latinos, or in favor of asians over whites, or in favor of northerners over southerners, or who knows what. (Here’s an example of the argument being applied to the “gender gap” on the SAT, from FairTest.org: http://www.fairtest.org/facts/genderbias.htm)

It’s certainly true that a standardized test can be racist or sexist by design. It’s also true that previous versions of the SAT, in particular, included racist and sexist test items.

But the major standardized tests have been changed many times in the past few decades, and no credible argument can be made that the tests are still racist or sexist in themselves . . .

full text: Discrimination in Standardized Tests

A student recently sent me an email that included the following:

Thanks again for your help. I took the LSAT twice (with a two-year stint in the Peace Corps somewhere in between). The first time I prepared with a Kaplan course. The second time I took a Testmasters course and used some Powerscore materials to prepare for the test. In the end, I thought Kaplan was a complete waste of time

 . . .

full text: Making a Thousand-Dollar Mistake