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Not unless you took it about 6 times. ACT is $46 this year, SAT is $64.50 with the essay and $47.50 without. AP tests are $94.
That gets pricey, although I think there's an exception for those with financial need/hardships. My kids took 12 and 11 AP exams, respectively. Big chunk of change up front, but the college credits earned from the scores and used to offset Gen Ed requirements and prerequisites saved an even bigger chunk of change at university. PLUS, entering university with a bunch of credits puts one closer to the front of the line when registering for classes every semester as it's done by credits seniority. No more getting locked out of full classes that you need to take. That happens to those with fewer credits.
Also, for those not aware, one doesn't have to take an AP course to sit for the corresponding AP exam. You can self-study and take it. The score counts the same towards college credit, depending on the college's requirements (some only accept scores of 5 - the top score, some will take 4s and 5s, and some will even take 3s).
That gets pricey, although I think there's an exception for those with financial need/hardships. My kids took 12 and 11 AP exams, respectively. Big chunk of change up front, but the college credits earned from the scores and used to offset Gen Ed requirements and prerequisites saved an even bigger chunk of change at university. PLUS, entering university with a bunch of credits puts one closer to the front of the line when registering for classes every semester as it's done by credits seniority. No more getting locked out of full classes that you need to take. That happens to those with fewer credits.
Also, for those not aware, one doesn't have to take an AP course to sit for the corresponding AP exam. You can self-study and take it. The score counts the same towards college credit, depending on the college's requirements (some only accept scores of 5 - the top score, some will take 4s and 5s, and some will even take 3s).
There is a fee waiver, I don't know what it is now since I retired and don't deal with it. The waived fee used to be $54 for AP (which I was involved in as both a teacher and coordinator) and some systems would help with that.
My system paid for AP tests (Gates Foundation grant for several years, I don't know about how they pay for it now) so every kid took them. Of course, evaluations started to be based on AP scores even though we were told they wouldn't be.
Saw one multiple Teacher of the Year awardee with decades of teaching forced out because of AP scores. His successor had even more 1s. Same thing happened with the AP Calc teacher, although he just lost the class and wasn't Unsatisfactoried out.
the idea that education is failing, that young people have lower IQs etc are rubbish. Made up BS as part of a larger "fear" campaign conducted by Murdoch and his ilk.
Let me be clear.
IQ and Education are doing fine, what has changed is that some schools particularly the red state religious schools are not teaching science and critical thinking skills and instead push dogma.
The right wing has no ideas and thus sells fear and uncertainty. with all 3 branches fully under Republican control they have spent two years and have only managed 1 tax give away for the rich and no other policy bills.
Thus they sell fear. Trump is so desperate he is reduced to pretending a bunch of families coming to the border is some how a threat. 100 times that number cross the border everyday...
Yet trump sells it as fear. Just as this story of "decline" is nonsense too. Every year folks talk of declining educational standards... for the stories to be true would require the kids to come out of high school unable to read, write or count beyond 5.
you simply can't have a "decline' for the last 30 years without hitting rock bottom.
Well I won’t say the math is solid but, 0.7/36 in 5 years vs. 24 points/1600 in roughly 18-20 years. Essentially even if you would factor SAT being recentered you would need the new SAT to be 128 points less than it was in 1998.
Incorrect. What happens now is that two test-takers that are actually 70 points apart score a perfect 800 in Math. That's an 8.75% spread. Add Verbal to it, and it's a 9.4% spread (former 1510 now scores a perfect 1600). Score inflation, like grade inflation, may make people "feel" better about the test, but it doesn't mean that scores haven't been declining. We simply don't know because the SAT has camouflaged the decline by as much as 90 points.
the idea that education is failing, that young people have lower IQs etc are rubbish. Made up BS as part of a larger "fear" campaign conducted by Murdoch and his ilk.
Um... No. It's not BS.
I already posted what's been going on with the OECD's PIAAC. US adults have gone from mediocre ten years ago to even below that, now:
Quote:
"This exam [OECD's PIAAC], given in 23 countries, assessed the thinking abilities and workplace skills of adults. It focused on literacy, math and technological problem-solving. The goal was to figure out how prepared people are to work in a complex, modern society. And U.S. millennials performed horribly...
But surely America’s brightest were on top?
Nope.
U.S. millennials with master’s degrees and doctorates did better than their peers in only three countries, Ireland, Poland and Spain...The ETS study noted that a decade ago the skill level of American adults was judged mediocre. “Now it is below even that.” So Millennials are falling even further behind.
Top-scoring US millennials – the 90th percentile on the PIAAC test – were at the bottom internationally, ranking higher only than their peers in Spain. The bottom scorers (10th percentile) also lagged behind their peers."
Incorrect. What happens now is that two test-takers that are actually 70 points apart score a perfect 800 in Math. That's an 8.75% spread. Add Verbal to it, and it's a 9.4% spread (former 1510 now scores a perfect 1600). Score inflation, like grade inflation, may make people "feel" better about the test, but it doesn't mean that scores haven't been declining. We simply don't know because the SAT has camouflaged the decline by as much as 90 points.
That actually is terrible math. Only about the top 5% of scores get anywhere near a 700. Hence the rescaling doesn’t correspond to a 90 point increase across the board. In fact the increase is much much smaller than that. In fact it doesn’t matter because the last time the SAT was rescaled apparently was 1995 which is before the 24 point drop hence proving my point. So your 90 point inflation is 100% of mark for several reasons.
That actually is terrible math. Only about the top 5% of scores get anywhere near a 700.
It's correct math. A 70 point range on a test that has a top score of 800 is exactly a range of 8.75%. A 90 point range out of a possible 1600 is a 9.4% range. What you are refusing to recognize is that the SAT re-centering has the effect of camouflaging declining scores by as much as 90 points as we have no way of knowing which test-takers fall where within that 90 point range, whereas they were differentiated before the re-centering.
It’s the race to the bottom thanks to democrats controlling our complete education system for decades now.
(I was a high school teacher and saw it first hand....)
When I grew up in CA in the 50s and 60s, it was at the top in education and politically moderate. Now it’s near the bottom and hyper-liberal..... the results speak for themselves.
Another example — I live in a recently turned blue controlled county that used to be red in VA, and my local elementary school used to be in the top three in our large county just ten years ago, it is now at the very bottom and one third of the students barely can speak English.....
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