All but a handful of these kids need an immediate and continuing focus on basic skills; reading, writing, arithmatic and vocational skills training. Algebra and chemistry are a complete waste of time.

They would be doing these kids a tremendous favor if when they entered as freshman they treated them academically as 5th graders. What a mess.

I’m sure the teacher was talking about students getting 440 or over 1000 out of 1600.

He had to be, because 440 is not a possible score on the 2400 scale. The lowest possible score would be 200 Math, 200 Reading, 200 Writing for a total of 600.

The new SAT has three parts, Math, Reading Comprehension (similar to the old Verbal part) and Writing. Each is scored from 200 to 800, so the combined score goes from 600 to 2400.

However, lots of colleges pay no attention to the new Writing part. They still look at only Math and Reading Comprehension (nee Verbal) scores. Therefore, students often report their Math + Reading score.

A 440 Math plus Reading is a truly abysmal score. A bright eight year old could do better. In fact, because wrong answers are penalized, a student who answered no questions at all would probably do better than 440. Even answering one question, and answering it wrong, would most likely get a better combined score than 440.