The Los Angeles Times is running an article describing the challenges faced by Asian Americans as they apply for acceptance to top colleges.
The article describes the impact that their race and ethnicity has on their SAT scores:
Lee's next slide shows three columns of numbers from a Princeton University study that tried to measure how race and ethnicity affect admissions by using SAT scores as a benchmark. It uses the term “bonus” to describe how many extra SAT points an applicant's race is worth.
She points to the first column. African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 points, Lee says.
She points to the second column. “Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points.”
The last column draws gasps. Asian Americans, Lee says, are penalized by 50 points — in other words, they had to do that much better to win admission.
“Do Asians need higher test scores? Is it harder for Asians to get into college? The answer is yes,” Lee says.
A core tenet of the American philosophy, even from before the days of the Founding Fathers, is that through hard work and excellence one should be able to obtain success in life. But is this ideal even possible when certain underachieving groups are given artificial advantages, while those with the most merit are artificially held back?
(Score: 5, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday March 02 2015, @09:32AM
A study of cultural bias in the SAT test pointed out that a particular question had the answer "lemons". (I'm afraid I don't recall the question, just the answer.)
Hispanics fared poorly on that particular question, because lemons are not widely consumed; Hispanic culture favors limes.
Quite commonly bias is quite subtle, but real.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:38AM
"What are GM vehicles called?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @10:55AM
No va? Chevy Nova? (Of course, if you are a monolinguist, this will not be funny)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @11:10AM
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:39AM
"I am not a racist because . . . I am not a racist?" MDC, you are not playing the game right! And while we are at it, what are the possible and average points on the SATs, so we might have some idea of just how not racist we are being in objecting to the bonus/penalties?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:51AM
That is simply not true. We use lemons in our food at all times. Rarely limes.
I am Spanish.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:55AM
But you're not Mexican. Could this be the source of the confusion?
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lim%C3%B3n#Spanish [wiktionary.org]
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/citr%C3%B3n#Spanish [wiktionary.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday March 02 2015, @10:37AM
I've lived among Mexican-American people most of my life, however I have only met a very few Spanish people in the US.
I apologize, I do realize that the term "Hispanic" means someone of Spanish descent, but in my specific case, I intended it to mean someone from Latin America.
I once had a Spanish girlfriend; she was very proud of the fact that she was Spanish and not Mexican.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday March 02 2015, @10:40AM
-*- Dread Pirate Roberts: "No good, I've known too many Spaniards!"
Wait, is that racist?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @04:15PM
Grasping at straws, man.
Do you know what the Spanish word for limes is? "Limones." Looks pretty darn close to "Lemons", doesn't it?
Look up your specific SAT example question and post it here if you want to convince others. Then bring back around 50 other culturally biased questions to boot, since a single question will not change the score.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @10:30PM
One of the major objections to Pearson|SAT|whatever is that if your kid does more poorly than expected, you can't look at the questions and lodge a complaint that the questions|"correct" answers are nonsense|subjective.
The test contents are "intellectual property".
Hurrah for the Neoliberal takeover of the educational process!
-- gewg_