Word: sectioning
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...other kinds of noise are now to be allowed. Take the writing section, which will be divided between multiple-choice questions on grammar and style, and an essay students must write on an assigned topic (see chart for an example). Historically, the SAT has had only multiple-choice items. As Lemann writes of the early rationale for the SAT, "Tests that require a student to write essays ... are highly susceptible to the subjective judgment of the grader and to the mood of the taker on the day of the test, so they have low reliability...
Reliability is a measure of a test's precision from one administration to the next--a gauge of how much noise, or measurement error, it has eliminated. The standard error of measurement for a typical SAT is about 30 points for the math section and 30 for the verbal. That's why the College Board tries to get students and admissions officers to think of scores not as pinpoints but as ranges: if you get 510 on the SAT's math section, your "true" score is anywhere between...
Thirty points in either direction is a pretty big swing, but scores on the writing section will be even less reliable: field trials of the New SAT estimate a standard error of measurement of 41 points. That means a kid who gets a 670 may "really" be in the elite reaches of the 700s--or in the more average environs of the low 600s. There are two reasons for the writing test's imprecision: first, the multiple-choice component of the test will be just 20 to 30 minutes, compared with 70 minutes each for math and reading. Less time...
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...instead. Such is the advice of veteran financial journalist Michelle Leder in Financial Fine Print: Uncovering a Company's True Value. She doesn't expect you to read all 300 pages of a company's financial statement or try to comprehend complex derivatives. The most crucial section is the footnotes, where many companies bury bad news. An attentive reader can spot the red flags: inflated growth assumptions for pension assets, a subsidiary controlled by a son-in-law, lots of synthetic leases. Then get your money out. Compare the most recent reports to those of past years, and skim...