Distribution of SAT Math Scores of College Students

Wainer, Howard;  Steinberg, Linda S., Sex Differences in Performance on the Mathematics Section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test: A Bidirectional Validity Study. Harvard Educational
Review;  v62 n3 p323-36 Fall 1992

"Matching almost 47,000 men and women on type of math course taken and grade received, women scored about 33 points lower on the Scholastic Aptitude Test-Mathematics than men who had taken the same course and received the same grade."

	The scores of half of the men were higher than the highest scoring group of women.
	The scores of two thirds of the women were lower than men who got "D"s.
	The scores of almost half of the women were lower than all of the groups of men.
	None of the women's groups scored in the range of men who got A's.
	None of the women's groups scored in the range of men who got B's.
	One quarter of the women scored in the range of men who got C's.
	One third of the women scored in the range of men who got D's.

The difference in median SAT Math scores between boys who got As and:

1. Girls who got Fs was 132 points. 
2. Girls who got Cs was 87 points.
3. Boys who got Fs was 68 points.
4. Boys who got Cs was 38 points.
5. Girls who got As was 34 points.
6. Boys who got Bs was 17 points.

The gap between boys who got Fs and girls who got Fs was almost as big as the gap between boys who got As and boys who got Fs.

A) The women's group's mean score was 30.7% higher than women nationally while the men's group's was 25.8% higher than men nationally.   This small but important 4.9% difference which suggests that the women's group was not as representative of women as the men's group was of men.

B) There were 4,864 or 18.8% fewer women in the study than men.  The smaller sample size for women may be because there were not enough high-scoring women available.  Had the sample sizes been equal,the differences between the sexes would have been larger.  The sample sizes for women in Advanced Math were one half (1/2) that for men and for Calculus were 40% lower than that for men while the sample sizes of women in Remedial Math and Regular Math were larger.  Since women's Remedial Math scores were 48.3% lower than their Advanced Math scores, increasing the sample size by 23.1% with students whose average scores were 48.3% lower would have reduced women's "Grade Means" from 536 to 517, which is 19 points or another 5.7%.

Editor's Note: A more significant outcome of this study than the 33 point difference in SAT Math scores of math majors is that 50.4% of the males score higher than all of the female groups.

1) The median SAT Math scores of all SAT test takers in 1993 were 502 for men and 457 for women.

2) The "base score" for SAT Math tests is 200--the difference between men and women is  (502 minus 457) divided by (457 minus 200) or 17.5%.

3) SAT scores accurately predict college grades as well as a future employee's math competence.

With this proof that men who are equally qualified as women are given grades which are two letter grades lower than grades given to women, consider the following feminazi hogwash from Dartmouth, a once fine American university http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/student_projects/morgen/node1.html

In 1992, Howard Wainer and Linda Steinberg of the ETS released the results of their own follow up study. In this study, the researchers employed a retrospective analysis to measure the difference between men's and women's math SAT scores. Instead of predicting performance based on given SAT scores, these researchers took a sample of 47,000 college men and women, according to the type of math course taken and the grade received, and then predicted what each sex's math SAT score should be. They found that men scored, on average, 33 points higher on math retrospectively while their prospective research suggested that men outscored women by an even larger difference (Wainer, 323). The retrospective method is of little use to the college admission process since the college wants to predict how a student will do before he or she is accepted (328). The researchers tried the two methods to provide different perspectives on an old problem but did not draw inferences from the varying size of the methodical point gaps because the two methods were in fact distinct (329, 332).

Again, the ETS researchers do not speculate on the cause of the differential but the report is radical in that it acknowledges the abuse of the use of SAT scores and that such abuse can be detrimental to women. The abuse includes overweighing the SAT or using it as sole criterion in some admission processes. Also, the test is employed as a proficiency cut-off for some college math courses and scholarships which is a potential misuse(330). The researchers suggest three factors which could cause the differential but do not peruse them in this study. The factors could be: that different selection mechanisms by sex (guidance, role models, etc.), the possibility that the math SAT favors men, or that the grading practices in first year math courses favors women (331). The researchers conclude that despite intensive studies previously performed on these possible causes, it is impossible to uncover the truth because of biased sampling, i.e. the impossibility of obtaining and tracking a truly random sample. Toward the end of the report Wainer and Steinberg pose questions to society and suggest social control in correcting the SAT bias through external methods such as awarding equal numbers of scholarships to men and women by creating selection pools based on sex (333).

This, from a woman who's been given every opportunity in the world to be able to learn, who was given preferential treatment to get her into these once fine universities, who should now be able to analyze such data with ease, proved beyond the shadow of all doubt that she still can't get off first base.   If women do poorly on all these tests, not just the standardized tests but on the classroom tests as well, then HOW can she justify that women are given the preferential treatment in the classroom by teachers who use every trick in the book to raise their grades by two letter grades?  It's not proof that girls understand the subject matter just because they "work harder", or "boys don't let girls participate in class discussions", or "girls have better attendance records"--it's just the opposite.  These test prove that affirmative action DOES NOT WORK, and nothing less.  The inequity that these feminazis are willing to live with is proof enough that they should never, ever have been allowed to vote.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/chance_news/recent_news/chance_news_2.10.html

Sex differences in Performance on the mathematics section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test: A bi-directional validity study. Harvard Educational Review, Fall 1992. Howard Wainer and Linda S. Steinberg. This study by Educational Testing Service researchers reviews the literature concerning the difference between men and women on the mathematics SAT tests and reports on their own study. They compare SAT-M scores for men and women with the same grades and also grades for men and women with the same SAT-M scores. They show that women consistently do about thirty points lower on these tests. Since women do as well as men in college this raises questions about the proper use of the SAT-M exams in college admission and competitive scholarship programs. They discuss some possible solutions ranging from giving women extra points to doing nothing. The authors favor continuing to try to understand what is going on.

http://www.campbell-kibler.com/Overcoming_Anxiety.htm

When using test scores to decide who to admit or who is most likely to succeed, the obvious thing to do is use the same cut off score for everyone, to judge everyone on the same standard.  However, sometimes the obviously "fair" choice is not fair.

For example the SAT:M tends to overpredict men’s grades in college math courses and underpredict women’s grades.  When women and men have the same SAT:M score, the women tend to have higher grades in college math courses than do the men, even when the courses are the same (Wainer and Steinberg, 1992).  To have the SAT:M be equally successful in predicting women and men’s first year college math grades you could use a lower cut off score for women than for men or you could revise the test so that the same score predicts equally well for women and men.

Currently, grades are the predictor variable, how success in high school, college, or graduate school is defined for admissions testing even though at all education levels, women tend to have better grades than men. There may be better ways of defining success than grades but if definitions of success are changed then so must be the tests used to predict that success.  In measurement sometimes being unequal means being more accurate and thus more fair.