College Board logic

The following passage is excerpted from  a recent College Board press release:  https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/one-year-since-launch-official-sat-practice-on-khan-academy-is-leveling-the-playing-field-for-students-300278934.html. A year ago today,  Official SAT ®Ã‚  Practice  for the new SAT went live on KhanAcademy.org, making free, world-class, personalized online practice available for all students. There are now more than 1.4 million unique users on Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy — this represents four times the total population of students who use all commercial test prep classes in a year combined. Data show that the practice platform is reaching students across race, ethnicities, and income levels — mirroring the percentage of SAT takers. Almost half of all SAT takers on  March 5  used Official SAT Practice to prepare, causing a 19 percent drop in the number of students who paid for SAT prep resources. Which of the following would most directly  undermine the College Boards assertion that the number of students using Official SAT Practice was responsible for the 19 percent decline in the number of students paying for SAT prep resources?   (A) Providers of SAT prep resources have begun offering low-cost preparation programs in order to more effectively compete with Khan Academy. (B) Students who sign up for free Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy  typically use that platform as their only resource for  SAT preparation. (C) The number of students who took  the SAT this year was larger  than the number of students  who took the SAT  in recent  years.   (D) Students who in the past  would have taken the SAT and paid for SAT preparation resources instead took  the ACT and  paid for ACT preparation resources.   (E) More students registered for free Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy than registered for the paid prep previously offered by the College Board.   (Scroll down for the answer) Answer: D Virtually every experienced tutor Ive heard from  has made a concerted effort to steer students toward the ACT this year. Furthermore, families  who pay  for test-prep also tend to  be savvy enough to want their children to prep for an exam that is a known entity, and for which a substantial body of authentic practice material exists, and to not be offered up as  guinea pigs. The decision to  use the SAT as a state graduation test also provides a possible explanation for the alleged drop in paid test prep. Ive heard from other sources that non-required SAT registration was actually  down by about 20% this year. It therefore stands to reason that a significant percentage  of the students taking rSAT were students who would not have taken the test, had they not be required to do so by their schools. This is a major shift in the test-taking population, and it makes comparisons between the pre-March 2016 group and the post-March 2016 group very difficult.  The students taking the test only because of a school requirement  would almost certainly not have paid for test preparation in the first place. If the College Boards statistics are correct (and based on recent revelations, theres considerable reason to question whether that is in fact that case), it seems likely that  a combination of factors produced the drop.  There are undoubtedly many students who are using Khan Academy exclusively, but 1) many of those students would not have paid for test prep in previous years anyway; and 2) some of those students will not meet their goals through Khan prep alone and will sign up for a class or decide to work with a tutor. Summer is  when both of those things are most likely to happen, also calling  spring statistics regarding paid prep  into question. Given the extent to which Khan was touted, it  also seems reasonable to assume  that more students deliberately waited for their scores  before deciding whether to opt for paid prep.   Never mind  the fact that registering as  a unique user on Khan in no way indicates that a student will use the site for the type of consistent, sustained study required for improvement, or even that theyll ever bother to log in again. Some students certainly will use its offerings to maximum advantage, but again, those are the super-focused self-starters who would have worked on their own regardless. And they are a very small minority. (Note to tech geniuses: the fact that you had the drive to  sit yourself down at the age of 16 and teach yourself  calculus for fun  does not mean that the average 16 year-old non-tech genius can do the same.) ETS may have its problems, but at least its employees tend to understand the very basics of logic, like, oh, say, the difference between correlation and causation.   Its statements like these that really  force one to question the College Boards ability to  produce a reasoning test.