For those of you arguing the difficulty of attaining an 18 on the ACT, a few things:
1.) An 18 puts a student in the 34th percentile. In other words, if you receive an 18, you've achieved a score better than 34% of test takers.
2.) In still other words, an 18 is not generally viewed as a difficult score to attain, nor is it considered an impressive score.
3.) These kids often come from rough socioeconomic backgrounds that stunt or delay their intellectual development.
4.) And some kids just don't give enough ****s.
In conclusion, I've got my fingers and toes crossed. If an 18 ACT score is legitimately the last hurdle, then there is all sorts of hope.
As to whether a score in the 34th percentile is difficult to attain:
I admit that the following example is replete with questionable assumptions and shady logic, but it also possesses a modicum of truthiness.
Suppose that the people who view this site constitute a more or less typical group in terms of various abilities. Then about 34% of us would have been unable to get an 18 on the ACT test when we were in high school. Does that mean that the test is difficult? Well, for about 1/3 of us, the answer would be yes. For the other 2/3, the answer would be no.
you have to be a ****** to not get an 18. Those 34% are kids who didn't pay attention in school, nor did work.
You can't compare a population of all high school test takers to a population of internet message board posters. It will be biased.
P.S. It's really not hard to score in the 75th percentile.
Take into account students in the innner cities and states that have horrible education that are taking this test.
Maybe you are right about the groups I compared, but I am really not sure. I wouldn't be surprised if the average high school ACT test-taker turned out to be every bit as intelligent and capable as the average "internet message board poster."
Okay, an average of say, 30 year old message board men are dumber than/as 34% of 18 year old kids.
A few points:
1. We are not really comparing to the group of ALL (actually more like 16 and 17 year old) kids, but to the subgroup who take the ACT test. A lot of kids have no plans to even try to get into a four-year college, but typically plan to either go to a community college like Miami-Dade or to begin working. In the vernacular, many of these are not college material. These kids usually don't take any college admissions tests. So the group of kids taking college admissions tests is probably more intellectually talented than kids of their ages in general since a lot of the intellectually weaker kids have already been culled out.
2. Maybe I am missing something, but I am not sure that people who post on message boards are, on average, any more or less intelligent than those who don't.
3. When you use the phrase "on average," I think you are talking about the 50th percentile. Taken literally, your last sentence would seem to imply that I am suggesting that 50% of message board men would compare to the bottom 34% of the test-takers. My suggestion is more along the lines of "the bottom 34% of message board men are comparable to the bottom 34% of ACT test-takers."
4. In my original post I said, "I admit that the following example is replete with questionable assumptions...." The primary one I had in mind was the assumption that the two groups were truly comparable. While I am not as convinced as you seem to be that being a message board man is a sign of an above average intellect, I do recognize that the two groups may have somewhat different profiles. But the essence of what I was getting at does not lie in the precise figure of 34%. The general drift of my comment is that, be it 34%, 20%, 10%, or 50%, there are probably a number of people who could not have scored an 18 on the ACT when they were in high school.
5. Don't consider high school kids to all fit some negative stereotype. I know two high school seniors who were recently accepted to Caltech, which is probably above even M.I.T. in terms of engineering and the physical sciences. I seriously doubt that our board here can boast two graduates of Caltech.
6. My main overall point is let's not denigrate a kid because something that may be easy for some is difficult for him. Give the kid a break.
