The Fifth Norming of the Mega Test

Ronald K. Hoeflin

 

          The fourth norming of the Mega Test was based on scores reported by Mega Test participants on five previously taken tests: the Army General Classification Test, the California Test of Mental Maturity, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the Stanford-Binet, and the Langdon Adult Intelligence Test. Three commonly reported test results -- on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the Graduate Record Exam, and the Miller Analogies Test -- were discarded on the grounds that their means and standard deviations with respect to the general population are quite uncertain.

          Recently, however, fresh information on the distribution of scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test has been obtained by Keith Raniere, a member of the Hoeflin Research Group, from senior statisticians at the Educational Testing Service. Using this information, it is now possible to norm the Mega Test by comparison with a test for which an unusually large sample is now available. For whereas most conventional intelligence tests are normed using a sample of just 3,000 or so participants, the new SAT data consists of the performances of 964,739 individuals who took the test as high-school seniors in 1984. Moreover, this data shows combined verbal plus mathematical aptitude scores, whereas all previous data consisted of separated data for the verbal and mathematical aptitude portions of the SAT, which left the distribution of combined scores a matter of conjecture.

          There is still some uncertainty as to how the new data relates to the general population, since not all high school seniors attempt the SAT, but using the Educational Testing Service's conjecture that more then 95% of the most able one percent of high school seniors attempt the SAT each year, it is possible to arrive at some fairly plausible norms for the Mega Test, which reaches the 99th percentile at a fairly low raw score. In fact, the results are almost identical to those arrived at in the fourth norming despite the strikingly different sources of these two normings.

          The present norming is presented in the form of seven charts, whose contents can be summarized as follows:

          Chart A: This chart shows the distribution of scores on the SAT for 964,739 high-school seniors in 1984.

          Charts B, C, and D: These charts show (A) the distribution of SAT scores reported by Mega Test participants, (B) the distribution of Mega Test raw scores of these same participants, and (C) a smoothed distribution of Mega Test raw scores for these participants.

          Chart E: This chart shows the scores on the SAT and on the Mega Test that are equivalent to various percentiles vis-a-vis the general population based on comparisons of Charts A, B, C, and D as well as estimates (reported orally to Keith Raniere by Educational Testing Service officials) concerning what percentage of high-school seniors at various ability levels attempt the SAT and what percentage of SAT data is from foreign students.

          Chart F: This is a graph of the results from Chart E.

          Chart G: This chart gives IQ's and percentiles for each raw score on the Mega Test as read from Chart F.


 

 

Chart A
1984 National College-Bound Seniors
SAT V + M Test Score Distributions
Score Frequency Cumulative frequency
1600 5 964,739
1590 0 964,734
1580 27 964,734
1570 19 964,707
1560 39 964,688
1550 75 964,649
1540 96 964,574
1530 108 964,478
1520 188 964,370
1510 217 964,182
1500 278 963,965
1490 316 963,687
1480 404 963,371
1470 473 962,967
1460 617 962,494
1450 601 961,877
1440 795 961,276
1430 874 960,481
1420 1,071 959,607
1410 1,196 958,536
1400 1,323 957,340
1390 1,439 956,017
1380 1,621 954,578
1370 1,871 952,957
1360 2,028 951,086
1350 2,267 949,058
1340 2,495 946,791
1330 2,698 944,296
1320 3,155 941,598
1310 3,334 938,443
1300 3,661 935,109
1290 3,730 931,448
1280 4,099 927,718
1270 4,393 923,619
1260 4,762 919,226
1250 4,923 914,464
1240 5,623 909,541
1230 5,701 903,918
1220 6,143 898,217
1210 6,797 892,074
1200 6,878 885,277
1190 7,091 878,399
1180 7,500 871,308
1170 7,981 863,808
1160 8,346 855,827
1150 8,790 847,481
1140 9,470 838,691
1130 9,715 829,221
1120 10,293 819,506
1110 10,639 809,213
1100 11,136 798,574
1090 11,288 787,438
1080 11,713 776,150
1070 12,224 764,437
1060 12,652 752,213
1050 13,057 739,561
1040 13,733 726,504
1030 14,064 712,771
1020 14,333 698,707
1010 15,109 684,374
1000 15,082 669,265
990 15,118 654,183
980 15,440 639,065
970 15,566 623,625
960 16,294 608,059
950 16,368 591,765
940 16,640 575,397
930 16,899 558,757
920 16,539 541,858
910 17,351 525,319
900 17,089 507,968
890 17,138 490,879
880 16,936 473,741
870 17,233 456,805
860 17,155 439,572
850 17,439 422,417
840 16,933 404,978
830 16,801 388,045
820 16,903 371,244
810 16,639 354,341
800 16,061 337,702
790 15,862 321,641
780 15,540 305,779
770 15,881 290,239
760 14,992 274,358
750 14,778 258,366
740 14,413 244,588
730 14,061 230,175
720 13,761 216,114
710 13,365 202,353
700 12,795 188,988
690 12,094 176,193
680 11,942 164,099
670 11,579 152,157
660 10,532 140,578
650 10,727 130,046
640 9,990 119,319
630 9,674 109,329
620 9,512 99,655
610 8,621 90,143
600 8,412 81,522
590 7,958 73,110
580 7,304 65,152
570 7,139 57,848
560 6,412 50,709
550 5,974 44,297
540 5,654 38,323
530 5,086 32,669
520 4,796 27,583
510 4,216 22,787
500 3,769 18,571
490 3,275 14,802
480 2,812 11,527
470 2,439 8,715
460 1,785 6,276
450 1,737 4,491
440 1,107 2,754
430 665 1,647
420 431 982
410 326 551
400 204 225
390 0 21
380 1 21
370 3 20
360 1 17
350 3 16
340 1 13
330 1 12
320 2 11
310 2 9
300 0 7
290 0 7
280 0 7
270 3 7
260 3 4
250 0 1
240 1 1
230 0 0
220 0 0
210 0 0
200 0 0

Reprinted by permission of the Educational Testing Service, the copyright holder.

 

[ the rest of this norming is still under construction ]

 

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