Where I'm teaching, bad test takers are effectively killed and eaten. Competition is unbelievably fierce, and one bad performance on the wrong test can screw you for life. Yeah, Korean kids score high on all those international achievement tests and whatnot, but you know what? They are, far and away, the most unhappy teenagers on the face of the earth.
It's real but only for a small minority. Dumb people would rather believe they are bad test takers than that they are dumb. As for students who get good grades but do poorly on tests: who is to say which is the better measure? I think there are many more students who get grades above their intelligence level through hard work than there are those who don't test well It's pretty much the same as how all fat people are "genetically predisposed" to be fat, and not that they eat too much and don't exercise
Well, I know someone that didn't pass the bar or ethics exam their first try, but did exceptionally well the second time on both. The same thing happened on the LSAT and SAT and on all occasions lack of study wasn't an issue. And not testing well (on the first tests) has not been an indication of this persons work, even when under stress.
That's anomalous. The bar results are actually dragged down by repeat test takers who fail repeatedly. A repeat test taker is far more likely to fail and is far more likely to be from an inferior school (and thus more likely to have fared poorly on the LSAT). And while, yes, I agree that the bar exam is not a foolproof indicator of ability at work, it is not an esoteric (or especially difficult) test. People who fail the bar exam generally do so because they're not very clever or because they're not paying attention. Naturally there will be outliers, but outliers don't disprove trends.
Bulls that are going to be used in a bull-fight are protected by armed men for their entire lives to make sure that no drunk yahoo sneaks in to try and "fight the bull" like a torero... ... b/c the bull will get in the ring and literally annihilate the bullfighter. Once they figure out the game, bulls are unstoppable.
I understand your point and agree, or don't have the knowledge to disagree with you on this subject. I was just throwing out a counter example of someone I know to be a legitamately "bad" test taker and happened to be from a "top" law school. For whatever reason on big exams my friend has difficulties the first time, but does extremely well the second time. It should also be noted that this person never had problems with mid-term or final exams.
I should note that being from a top law school is not a guarantee of having done well on standardized exams. There are always places reserved for applicants whose special qualifications may at times override some very mediocre test results. (And when you talk about top law schools, a "mediocre" LSAT score is atrocious.) I should also add that the only person in my starting class of first year associates to fail the bar was a Yalie.