Washington's SAT Scores

An update on yesterday's post about the slight decline in SAT scores nationally (down one point in reading to 502; three in writing to 494 and to 515 in math).

According to a story in today's Seattle P-I, Washington state students who took the college entrance exam only saw their collective scores drop two points by comparison. In our state, the average scores were 526 in reading, 510 in writing and 531 in math. A detailed, state-by-state report is also available online, which allows a more in-depth look at the data for the 34,638 students who sat for the SAT. For example:

• In math, boys still outscore the girls, this time by 34 points (provided my math is correct).
• There were 31 freshmen who took the test and 493 seniors
• 67 percent of our state's testers were white; 13 percent were Asian, Asian American or Pacific Islander. Four percent were Black or African American. Three percent identified themselves as Mexican or Mexican American and 2 percent said they were Hispanic, Latino or Latin American.
• 44 percent took the PSAT as a junior and 29 percent never took the PSAT at all.
• The mean grade point average for the test-takers: 3.41.

There's a great breakdown of coursework by gender and SAT grade that's worth a closer look. Fifty-eight percent of test-takers reported taking four years of mathematics (44 percent of boys and 58 percent of girls). There's data for English, natural sciences, social sciences and history, too.

Finger Length and SAT Scores?

This just in from the "weird science and education news" department: student finger lengths can be used to predict SAT scores. Really.

As humorist Dave Barry would say, " I am not making this up."

According to research by LiveScience.com, students with ring fingers longer than their index fingers have higher math scores than verbal scores on the college entrance exam. Students with the reverse ratio tended to have higher verbal scores and lower math scores. What's to account for this trend? LiveScience says:

Exposure to testosterone in the womb is said to promote development of areas of the brain often associated with spatial and mathematical skills, he said. That hormone makes the ring finger longer. Estrogen exposure does the same for areas of the brain associated with verbal ability and tends to lengthen the index finger relative to the ring finger.

To test their hypothesis, researchers made photocopies of children's palms and measured the length of their index and ring fingers (using calipers accurate to .01 mm). The researchers then looked at boys' and girls' test scores separately, comparing them to finger-length ratios. In the end, they said they found a clear link between prenatal testosterone exposure (indicated by the finger length) and the higher SAT scores in math. You can read the full story here.

In the interest of full disclosure, LiveScience's hypothesis pans out with this author's own finger-ratio and math scores.

Maybe LiveScience could replicate the study with the WASL?