{"id":29020,"date":"2017-08-03T05:55:40","date_gmt":"2017-08-03T09:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=29020"},"modified":"2017-08-03T05:09:01","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T09:09:01","slug":"a-classical-alternative-to-the-sat-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/08\/a-classical-alternative-to-the-sat-act\/","title":{"rendered":"A classical alternative to the SAT & ACT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Gre<\/a><\/p>\n

High school graduates who want to go to college nearly always have to take the SAT or the\u00a0ACT, the college entrance exams that universities use to assess prospective students for admission and scholarships.<\/p>\n

These tests do not measure knowledge, as such, as implied when teachers warn against \u201cteaching to the test.\u201d \u00a0Rather, they measure aptitude, a student\u2019s academic skills. \u00a0Thus, much of the tests consist of having students read passages of various difficulties and answer questions about them designed to assess comprehension and analytical ability. \u00a0Other parts of the test measure vocabulary, logical reasoning,\u00a0and the ability to do math problems. \u00a0(The math section\u00a0is the one part of the test that depends on the specific content of what the student learned in high school, drawing on algebra, geometry, and some calculus and trigonometry.)<\/p>\n

\n

But content is also important. \u00a0Progressive education in general focuses on skills rather than knowledge, which fits the SAT and ACT. \u00a0But\u00a0how can a student handle challenging content? \u00a0<\/em>Can the student interact with great ideas? \u00a0Can the student understand works of literature, philosophy and history? \u00a0Or a scientific article? \u00a0Or a discussion of theology?<\/p>\n

The new classical schools work on those kinds of questions. \u00a0Their curriculum\u2013used also by many homeschoolers\u2013is more challenging than the typical school that follows some version of progressive educational theory. \u00a0Their students generally do well on the SAT and ACT, but there has not really been a test to assess how well they do with what they have been taught.<\/p>\n

But now there is such a test. \u00a0The Classic Learning Test (CLT) is an alternative to the SAT and ACT. \u00a0One of the developers talks about it after the jump.<\/p>\n

Homeschoolers, classical charter schools, ACCS schools, and Classical Lutheran schools should take a look at this test. \u00a0Their students may still need to take the SAT or ACT, depending on what college they want to attend. \u00a0So far, 67 schools accept the CLA in lieu of the other exams. \u00a0(Concordias, why don\u2019t you?) \u00a0But having their students take the CLA is also a good way for classical schools to see how they are doing.<\/p>\n

Here<\/a> is the CLA website.<\/p>\n

From Mark Bauerlein,\u00a0A Test for Classical Christian Students | Mark Bauerlein | First Things<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNo more teaching to the test!\u201d is the battle cry of the growing\u00a0anti-testing movement<\/a>\u00a0in primary and secondary education in America.\u00a0But there is one area where we need more tests, not fewer\u2014or rather, more choices of which test to take: college admissions.\u00a0There, we have a two-party system, consisting of SAT and ACT.\u00a0In the class of 2015, 1.7 million kids took the\u00a0SAT<\/a>, nearly two million the\u00a0ACT<\/a>. How many of these kids would have found the college application process less alienating and more authentic (and therefore a better gauge of their talents) if they had had more options from which to choose?<\/p>\n

An alternative has been developed.\u00a0It\u2019s called the\u00a0Classic Learning Test<\/a>, a college entrance examination that tests for verbal and quantitative reasoning.\u00a0I helped develop the project in 2015, because it looked so much more calibrated to the teaching I do in freshman classes than do the other options.\u00a0The CLT resembles other standardized tests, except that it breaks the area of verbal reasoning (which other tests treat as one) down into four sub-areas: Philosophy\/Religion, Natural Science, Literature, and Historical\/Founding Documents.\u00a0Those areas reflect the contents of a classical Christian curriculum.\u00a0Whereas the SAT and ACT adopt a value-neutral approach, often because of \u201cbias\u201d fears, the CLT selects passages deeply and frankly value-heavy, ones that ask students to grapple with strong and often difficult moral implications.<\/p>\n

The project is only a few years old, but 67 colleges have already\u00a0agreed<\/a>\u00a0to accept scores on it instead of SAT and ACT if students submit them. More than 125 high schools across the country currently serve as local testing centers.\u00a0Students can take the exam at one of the centers, receive their scores in less than a week, and have them sent directly to any of the colleges listed on the test\u2019s web site. Students who have attended schools that assigned great works of Western civilization\u2014or who home-schooled using a Great Books curriculum\u2014will be pleased to find an exam that rewards them for the knowledge they\u2019ve acquired.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[Keep reading. . .]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Illustration<\/a> from Max Pixels, CC0, Public Domain<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

High school graduates who want to go to college nearly always have to take the SAT or the\u00a0ACT, the college entrance exams that universities use to assess prospective students for admission and scholarships. These tests do not measure knowledge, as such, as implied when teachers warn against \u201cteaching to the test.\u201d \u00a0Rather, they measure aptitude, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":29023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[511,5666,5665,1016,2645],"class_list":["post-29020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-classical-education","tag-classical-learning-test","tag-college-entrance-exams","tag-higher-education","tag-universities"],"yoast_head":"\nA classical alternative to the SAT & ACT<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Classic Learning Test is an alternative to the SAT and ACT, a college entrance exam focusing on classical education.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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