To answer the general question in this thread, part of the standardized conditions for administration of the SAT or ACT is that each test-taker receives a full sample test when registering for the test, so that each test-taker can in principle prepare in the same way by working through the sample test with actual test-taking time limits. That's ONE sample test. Not doing that is to be a chump. I know a human intelligence researcher who argues that testing under that kind of condition, in which item content and format is disclosed to all test-takers, is actually a better test of intelligence than attempting to surprise all test-takers with items that may in fact be innocently familiar to some test-takers from their home environment (as is done with what are labeled IQ tests). In terms of construct validity, IQ tests are largely indistinguishable from the SAT or ACT, as has been argued in several peer-reviewed papers published in the journal Intelligence and other journals.
Taking SAT scores as an informative correlate (proxy) of what psychologists call "general intelligence" is a procedure often found in the professional literature of psychology, with the warrant of studies specifically on that issue. Note that it is standard usage among psychologists to treat "general intelligence" as a term that basically equates with "scoring well on IQ tests and good proxies of IQ tests."
http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/koening2008.pdf "Frey and Detterman (2004) showed that the SAT was correlated with measures of general intelligence .82 (.87 when corrected for nonlinearity)"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3144549/"Indeed, research suggests that SAT scores load highly on the first principal factor of a factor analysis of cognitive measures; a finding that strongly suggests that the SAT is g loaded (Frey & Detterman, 2004)."
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...tter/the-sat-is-a-good-intelligence-test "Furthermore, the SAT is largely a measure of general intelligence. Scores on the SAT correlate very highly with scores on standardized tests of intelligence, and like IQ scores, are stable across time and not easily increased through training, coaching or practice."
http://faculty.psy.ohio-state.edu/p...sion_The_role_of_numeracy_in_J_and_D.pdf "Numeracy’s effects can be examined when controlling for other proxies of general intelligence (e.g., SAT scores; Stanovich & West, 2008)."
As I have heard the issue discussed in the local "journal club" I participate in with professors and graduate students of psychology who focus on human behavioral genetics (including the genetics of IQ), one thing that makes the SAT a very good proxy of general intelligence is that its item content is disclosed (in released previous tests that can be used as practice tests), so that almost the only difference between one test-taker and another in performance on the SAT is generally and consistently getting all of the various items correct, which certainly takes cognitive strengths.
By contrast (I have another Gifted Issues thread in mind as I type this), the expectation of IQ test norming is that the item content of the test will be a surprise to the test-taker. Yes, there are definitely examples in various places (not just New York City in the United States) where children can become familiar with the test items either through formal prep courses or through playing various kinds of games. Of course, a vocabulary subtest is a part of almost all IQ batteries, and some children will have life experience of using the vocabulary that happens to be sampled on a particular test and some will not. Mental arithmetic items are part of some IQ tests, and those will also reflect how well a child has been taught arithmetic.
