Hello. As someone who is about to take the real SAT, I have done over six months of research out of curiosity. I have heard that the pre-1994 SAT used to correlate strongly with IQ, particularly the Verbal Section. The SAT Verbal also had sections relating to antonyms and analogies, often with complex vocabulary. I looked at a sample analogy section (from pre-2005) and had no idea what any of the words meant, rendering the completion of any analogies useless. However, after looking up the words, the analogies made perfect sense to me.
If this vocabulary can be studied, why does the old section correlate with IQ? Most of the words would not be commonly encountered in real life, so how is anyone supposed to even score above average with unknown vocabulary? Would people with a higher IQ easily derive the meaning of this vocabulary on the spot (i.e. cacophonous, equanimity, harried)?


Regards,

Adan

I have taken the pre-1994 SAT. While it is true that there are some vocabulary words on the pre-1995 SAT which are archaic, the three words that you mentioned (cacophonous, equanimity and harried) actually do not fall in that category. I think that "people with a higher IQ" tend to be more well-read and thus have a larger vocabulary and perhaps some understanding/knowledge of roots/prefixes/suffixes to aid in deriving meaning as well. Some test takers did study/cram vocabulary although I don't believe that was anywhere as effective as being well-read.

So the above vocabulary words are words that should be known to the test-taker? I usually don't read anything like novels too much (busy in school), but your stance does make sense, considering that back in the time that you took the SAT, not many people went to college; therefore, the SAT was a opportunity for people to show there aptitude for abstract thinking, since the SAT was supposed to be for rich people and above average people (based from 1941 norms that the test was based on). Would that be correct?

I think it's because it's about making a reasoned guess. If you're reading is challenging (which it will be in college), you will encounter words you don't know. You can stop an look all of them up, or you can use the nearby words to derive the meaning from context. That's analogous to solving an analogy. So it was a way of testing readiness for college. Since SATs and IQ are apples and oranges (warning:analogy pun), how they correlate is essentially someone doing a lot of comparisons and making a reasoned guess.

Pre-1995 maybe we did more reading. English involved reading several novels and most of us read outside, in-between, and during class. I read Brave New World at least 3 times because I read it on my own, then for high school, then for college (possibly twice). Latin was still taught as a foreign language even in small high schools.

I took the ACT, so I don't actually have direct experience of the SAT (old or new).

In general, vocabulary correlates strongly with verbal intelligence, which is why it is on all of the gold standard individually-administered cognitive assessments. In my experience, the exception would be individuals with reading disabilities who have not had consistent, rich access to audiotext, who, often, perform much better on verbal reasoning tasks than on oral vocabulary tasks.

I would agree that those with strong verbal reasoning are also more likely to be able to deduce the meaning of an unknown word, in addition to having a larger vocabulary. Actually, that is likely a contributing factor to the preexisting larger vocabulary.

I also took the pre-1994 SAT, with, if I recall correctly, about 300 points of growth on the Verbal section over four annual administrations. That timeframe also corresponds with reading an average of about one novel per day, purely for pleasure (a bit under one for the first one or two years, and closer to two for the latter two years; I remember checking out a book from the school library first thing in the morning, reading through all of my classes, returning it in the afternoon, and checking out a book to read at home, which I then exchanged for a new book the next morning). I suspect it is not coincidence that my score rose 100 points between the last two administrations, when I was routinely reading about two novels per day on top of high school literature classes.

I would also agree that high school offerings can be quite different. At my private religious high school, my tiny class cohort of 40 had access to four years of Spanish, French, and German --but my calculus class was cancelled due to low enrollment (apparently one student was not enough to justify running the class!).

Another difference in reading expectations is in the shift away from literary toward informational text. At one point, college prep courses were focused on what we often call the classics, in preparation for post-secondary liberal arts education. With the movement toward school-to-work, up to half of high school English education has been shifted toward reading, comprehending, and responding to informational text, which necessarily has less complex vocabulary (there is certainly some very high level vocabulary in informational text, but as most of it is field-specific, it is more challenging to incorporate that type of text into a course for the general population). Differentiated classrooms also mean that many more students are hearing their reading selections read aloud, or on audiotexts, not because the majority of them would have been incapable of working their way through the written text, but in order to provide access to the minority who otherwise would be excluded from comprehension and response to text. This is a positive development for those with limited access to text (dyslexic, visually-impaired, some limited English proficient, etc.), but has the secondary effect of reducing the time-on-reading of all of the typical readers.

So complex reading with richer vocabulary used to be a major component in high school English classes? So the SAT WAS covering material taught in high school classes, unlike what most people say.

I think that's true; due to the fact that more informational text is being offered, and also that the vocabulary is not as much of a higher level as it was back then, the vocabulary may be hard to understand.

That being said, what is the vocabulary section on the WAIS like? Is it similar to the Old SAT Verbal? What are easy questions like (that an average person should be able to answer) and hard questions like (ones that the top 0.01% would be able to answer)?

It's difficult to give examples for the WAIS ethically...but I can say generally that the easier vocabulary items tend to be more concrete, while the harder items are more abstract.

This is why, if you want to improve your vocabulary, it is important to read complex texts that include abstract, nuanced ideas, across a wide range of topics, experiences, and styles, which, of course, will have the more critical long-term benefit of expanding your experience and understanding of the world, other people's perspectives, and life in general!

I second that, aeh. I'm pretty sure that if I do a lot of spare reading in my time, then I will build a lot of vocabulary. The only problem is, I have barely any patience for complex text.

Context within what I am reading matters. For example, on the post-2015 SAT the vocabulary-in-context questions are the easiest for me, since their implications are easy to understand. However, on a pre-2015 SAT, sentence completion and analogies tend to be difficult to because of how complex the words are. There is definitely quite a bit to learn in the world!

Yes there is! Your desire to learn will take you far.

In terms of patience for complex text, you may find that a mixture of print and audiotexts lowers the threshold to engaging with complex text. Just make sure that some of the audiotexts are literal readings of complex written language.

What's your measure of a complex text? When you do read on your own, what do you like to read?

Hi, mckinley. I sometimes like to read online articles if said article gets straight to the point rather than being a word salad. Unfortunately in ninth grade I was a bit arrogant, so I read 18 classic novels (Jules Verne, HG Wells) over the year just to show off. What I consider complex is usually either an AP textbook or any other assigned reading.

Wow. I don't think I can even name 18 Wells and Verne novels. Based on your other reading interests, I would recommend you check out Stephen Baxter. He's written authorized sequels to Time Machine and War of the Worlds (The Time Ships and Massacre of Mankind). Baxter has degrees in mathematics and engineering, so you often find discussions of real world science or math in his books. The books often feature notes at the end to refer you to the real world articles. I would say Baxter is like a modern H.G. Wells. Arthur C. Clarke is another similar author with strong science and literary skills. They also collaborated on a few books.

Or for an alternative, try Frankenstein.

You may already be familiar with (or have read) all those, but if you are I hope you'll just appreciate the suggestions and maybe they will spark some other ideas.

If you're curious about what sort of things they used to assign, we read Great Expectations, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, Grapes of Wrath, Brave New World and a lot of short stories and other things I forget since it was 20 years ago. Shakespeare is quite entertaining once you realize they're all filled with raunchy humor no matter how tragic. And Shakespeare actually invented some modern words which is cool from a vocabulary standpoint.

In my English class, Romeo and Juliet and Of Mice and Men are a part of the 9th grade curriculum, and Tempest was covered last year. I understood the words fine when they were within context. Also, only about 28% of the novels I read were by both Verne or Wells.

The main problem is that I usually do not remember the word meanings in an isolated sense. I can do it fine on the new SAT (vocab in context), but when isolated I draw a blank.


I will definitely check out your suggestions when I have time! Those sure sound really interesting.

It sounds like you understand the vocabulary in context, but can't necessarily articulate a specific dictionary-style definition on demand. That's not too unusual; most of us can use at least some words that we can't define--and, of course, using and understanding them correctly is more important than defining them. Sometimes it helps when one encounters words in multiple contexts, each of which adds a bit of nuance to the meaning of the word. You can also try thinking about how you would explain the meaning of the sentence, with the word in context, to someone else. That might help you solidify how you articulate the meaning, so that it becomes a little bit more accessible in other contexts, or in isolation.

Your English curriculum is fairly typical of what high schools expect now. And reading numerous classic novels doesn't have to be a mark of arrogance, if you don't rub it in other people's faces! The novels are worth reading in their own right.

I would second Arthur C. Clarke. You may know that he was a legitimate scientific thinker (the Clarke geostationary orbit is named after him, as he was the first to posit its existence--in one of his novellas, no less). Isaac Asimov's literary merit is a bit less than Clarke's, but his scientific bona fides are equally strong (PhD in chemistry). Larry Niven's Ringworld series is also high-concept classic science fiction.

What else do you like to read?

aeh, I think you hit the nail on the spot regarding the problem. Yes, I meant to show that what my English class is doing is standard for all high school students.


Sometimes, I like to read non-fiction if it intrigues me, but I usually lose interest in the reading real quickly. It takes brute force to focus on the reading, especially since the passages are extremely dense! This is especially true with the SAT English section. I used to be on an upward trajectory with both Math and English scores, but now my English score is decreasing, sometimes down to a 560 from an original 670...


Anyway, I usually like to read books that are a little bit below my grade level (embarrassing much?), because it doesn't usually exhaust me.

Nothing wrong with reading some books below your grade level--I still enjoy children's literature and YA fiction from time to time. I suggested audiobooks earlier exactly because it's less exhausting. You can also combine it with other activities, such as listening while riding a bike or out for a run.

Definitely! Thank you so much for your suggestions!

By the way, what would be an example of an extremely hard SAT analogy and antonym question from before 1994? An extremely hard math question form before 1994 as well? I just want to test my skill to see how well I would do with such questions, and I cannot find any from pre-1994 on the internet at all.

This isn't exactly what you were looking for, but you might find this history of the SAT interesting. It has a practice test from a really old version, from 1926, and examples of easy, medium, and hard items from various iterations if the SAT, though not if every version.
https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/RR-03-10-Lawrence.pdf

To aeh, I tried some of those problems, and I was unable to figure out the meaning of a lot of the words (virtue, divulged, esoteric).

Some books actually defy grade level classification, like L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. I re-read it this year and I think there are references I would still need to look up. But you don't have to understand every nuance of a book to enjoy it.

All of this talk about vocabulary got me wondering if there is some hard core vocabulary test where you are given two words that could be used interchangeably but you have to explain how they are different.

Anyway, the words you need you will learn as you need them. Just like you always have. I probably didn't learn 'juxtapose' until college where it became a basic part of my art criticism vocabulary. (Put one thing next to something else.)