Comment by chuckgreenman

I grew up in Florida, a state addicted to standardized testing, and after a while you start to notice something. Standardized tests are like a meta game. I'm sure they provide a basic bench mark to see if you're literate or can do basic math but beyond that it's just pattern recognition. After a certain point you stop reading the passages, just skimming, because it's always the same types of questions and you can sort of intuit which beats of the story you need to look at to get the answer. The math sections are the same kind of thing. Match the question up to the right memorized algorithm and run it.

The tests measure your willingness and ability to become good at something with no short-term, obvious benefit, which is a clever system. However, not every high school student has 200 hours to spend getting good at bullshit.