1. Eating chocolate before studying and/or during a test may increase your understanding of the test and improve your chances of passing the exam. Flavanols are a part of a group of chemicals called polyphenols, which work by increasing the flow of blood to the brain.
2. Students with high anxiety perform around 12 percentile points below their low anxiety peers (about half of a letter grade below).
3. The Wonderlic test is an IQ test used by the NFL to screen new players, and particularly quarterbacks. Surprisingly Dan Marino and Terry Bradshaw scored 15/50 and 16/50 respectively, while Aaron Rodgers, Tony Romo, and Eli Manning scored in the high 30’s. The only NFL player to ever make the perfect 50 was Pat McInally, a punter/receiver for the Bengals.
4. In 2011, for the first time, the number of students taking the ACT (1.666 million) surpassed the number of students taking the SAT (1.664 million).
5. The Gaokao, which is one of the most influential exams in China, has been linked to fainting, increased dropout rates, and increased rates of teenage suicide and depression in China.
6. Mensa’s requirement for membership is a score at or above the 98th percentile on certain standardized IQ or other approved intelligence tests, such as the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales.
7. The Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) is scored on a scale of 120 – 180, with the average score sitting at about 150, but acceptance into the most prestigious law schools, such as Harvard, usually requires at least a 170.
8. Beginning in 2015, the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) is scored on a scale of 472 – 528 with the average tester making about a 500; top schools such as Stanford and Johns Hopkins look for scores of at least 515.
9. In an effort to stay at the top of their game, many students turn to stimulant drugs such as Adderall, commonly prescribed for ADHD, to boost their stamina and concentration levels. Using Adderall without a prescription from a doctor could have serious health side effects.
10. In 2004, the American Association of Medical Colleges, which offers the MCAT exam for medical school admissions, sued Princeton Review Inc. The lawsuit charges that the company’s employees misrepresent themselves as students applying to medical school and memorized confidential MCAT questions.
11. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, the famous American Civil War commander, graduated bottom of his class at West Point qualifying for the GOAT award. Maybe his test scores had some effect on his run in with Sitting Bull.
12. Each year, several hundred students make the perfect score on the SAT, out of more than a million who participate. That’s something like 1 in 5,000 reaching the perfect score.
13. Microsoft and Cisco are continuously taking legal action against the Braindump (practice question bank) sites distributing their intellectual property. Recently over 600 of these websites were identified distributing test-related content.
14. Studies show that the average U.S. student spends 900 hours in a classroom, and 1,500 hours in front of a television by the end of high school, while their Chinese counterparts spend 1,800 hours in the classroom by the end of high school.
15. In the 1970s Tom Landry, coach of the Dallas Cowboys, was the first to use the Wonderlic Personnel Test to predict player performance.
16. In 2010, the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy (FSBPT or Federation) suspended National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE) testing for all graduates of Philippine Schools due to sharing and distribution of recalled questions.
17. A new study suggests that chewing gum might have a 15-20 min “window” effect during a test. Researchers think that this improvement in brainpower is because the chewing warms up the brain, a phenomenon they call by the suggestive name “mastication-induced arousal.”
18. According to a study conducted by the China Youth Research Center, in 2009 Chinese high school students spent an average of 3 hours on homework each night, compared to the average American high school student spending about an hour each night on homework.
19. The current SAT, introduced in 2016, takes 3 hours to finish plus 50 minutes for the SAT with an essay, and as of 2014 costs $52.50, excluding late fees. Possible scores on the SAT range from 400 to 1600, combining test results from two 800-point sections: Mathematics and Critical reading and Writing.
20. A top Thai medical college has caught students using spy cameras linked to smart watches to cheat during exams in what some social media users compared to a plot straight out of a Mission Impossible movie.
21. Between 2010 and 2011, one student named Sam Eshaghoff was paid by other students and successfully took the SAT at least 16 times, earning near perfect scores for his “clients”. He was arrested in the fall of 2011 for fraud and criminal impersonation.
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