SAT

Standardized Test you need to score well on for College Admission.

• many recommend you take twice - late junior year, early senior year
• and take PSAT in early junior year

Practice resources

• http://testprep.about.com/od/ACT_Prep/tp/Free_ACT_Practice.htm
• Official Student Guide to the PSAT/NMSQT - print book with a practice test in it
• http://www.princetonreview.com/free-online-practice-tests.aspx (SAT, ACT)
• Mc Graw Hill free practice http://www.mhpracticeplus.com/tests/ACT2015/ACT.html
• Princeton Review online/self-paced ACT prep: $300 (incl 4 full-length practice tests)
• free practice test? http://www.4tests.com/act

Mainly "validated" by its accuracy in predicting 1st-year-of-college grades.

• Roger Schank says Yes, SATs predict success in college. You want to know why? The willingness to do the mind numbing memorization and test practice needed to do well on the SAT does indeed predict the willingness to do whatever your professors tell you to do in college. A Personality Test would predict as well.
  • Some say that's the same true Signalling that a College Degree gives employers: the willingness/ability to follow orders.

Alternatives for evaluating Critical Thinking, etc.

• Until we are able to assess critical thinking, it probably won't get taught. PISA's international Problem Solving standardized test does assess this, but according to Harvard University's Dr. Tony Wagner, when it comes to the forward thinking model for American schools and colleges to watch, "The College and Work Readiness Assessment (CWRA/CLA) is really in a class by itself."... Teachers have not liked Multiple Choice tests but we could never figure out how to take to scale the more complicated problem solving Assessments that constitute the CWRA. However, we can now train human scorers to score open-ended essays based on scientifically designed rubrics as reliably as multiple-choice tests. Moreover, computer assisted scoring, built on our human scoring protocols, score these responses at levels that are as reliable as human scoring, which further reduces error and cost.