Somewhat against the point I made earlier, and in favour of "ability to benefit from test prep is itself g loaded" anyone who didn't follow The Perfect Score Project the first time round might like to read up on it:
http://perfectscoreproject.com/about-the-perfect-score-project-2/This professionally competent woman devoted a year, essentially, to prepping to a perfect SAT score. I assumed she'd do it, and I think she assumed she'd do it. She didn't; her maths scores moved remarkably little. Tbh I still can't really absorb this, and tend to wish I'd had the chance to prep her myself!
Testing doesn't just test ABILITY with the material, though-- that's the missing link there. There's no way to modify one's base processing speed or working memory; that's how I explain it.
DD and I neither one are
capable of a perfect 800 on the SAT-M. DH is.
On any given day, though, she and I both can do it on the verbal sections. I'm not convinced that this is entirely the result of better verbal skills as compared with math ability, either-- (it's just a matter of the test itself being a hostile environment for doing rapid calculations extremely accurately for us), and not impacting our verbal abilities negatively in the same manner.
Unlimited time and ideal conditions
DO result in perfect 800's for her and me both, for whatever that is worth. But that isn't what the SAT is like when you actually TAKE it.
It's grossly unfair, but someone who has a better working memory than I do, or simply doesn't make the stupid arithmetic errors under pressure-- can outscore me every time. {shrug} It is what it is. It doesn't mean anything at all about my math ability, by the way-- I certainly mastered math through trig and well beyond.
Anyway-- that's my explanation for why her scores didn't budge much. You can only move them so as to
optimize them for your own innate limitations within the test format. For a lucky few, their
understanding and
approach are the limiting factors. For the rest of us, we'll eventually reach a point of diminishing returns re: prepping.
