Prismattic comments on 2013 Survey Results - Less Wrong

74 Post author: Yvain 19 January 2014 02:51AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 19 January 2014 09:16:43PM 5 points [-]

Actually, I just ran the numbers on the SAT2400 and they're closer; the average percentile predicted from that is 99th, which corresponds to about 135.

Comment author: private_messaging 19 January 2014 11:10:39PM *  2 points [-]

For non-Americans, what's the difference between SAT 2400 and SAT 1600 ?

Averaging sat scores is a little iffy because, given a cut-off, they won't have Gaussian distribution. Also, given imperfect correlation it is unclear how one should convert the scores. If I pick someone with SAT in top 1% I shouldn't expect IQ in the top 1% because of regression towards the mean. (Granted I can expect both scores to be closer if I were picking by some third factor influencing both).

It'd be interesting to compare frequency of advanced degrees with the scores, for people old enough to have advanced degrees.

Comment author: Prismattic 20 January 2014 12:18:45AM 4 points [-]

The SAT used to have only two sections, with a maximum of 800 points each, for a total of 1600 (the worst possible score, IIRC, was 200 on each for 400). At some point after I graduated high school, they added a 3rd 800 point section (I think it might be an essay), so the maximum score went from 1600 to 2400.

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 21 January 2014 04:32:15AM 2 points [-]

Yes, it's a timed essay.