1288: Test Prep | Skeptical Sunday

11:35Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, sure. I mean, but here's where it gets messy. The SAT is supposed to be this objective measure of academic achievement, except study after study shows that high school GPA, regardless of what high school you went to, is actually a better predictor of college success than SAT scores.

11:54Jessica Wynn:Wait, so we're making everybody lose their mind over a test and the test doesn't predict the thing that it claims to predict?

12:01Jordan Harbinger:Pretty much. And this is where the bias argument gets complicated. So some people say the SAT itself is biased. Others say the test isn't biased, but the system around it is.

12:12Jessica Wynn:Okay, but bias could mean a lot of things. What does that actually mean here? I remember they were saying that back when I was in high school. They're like, it's biased towards wealthy white people. And it was like, why? And their examples were there's questions about sailing. And the example they gave had nothing to do with sailing. It just happened to have a sailboat in it. And I'm like, I don't think people who own a sailboat have an advantage. I always feel like these bias arguments, 50 % nonsense. But what does it mean here?

12:38Jordan Harbinger:Do you remember when they would say, you always say prefer not to answer on the race questions, whatever question you can, because that gives you a better advantage. It puts you in a different pile than if Anna Wasabi's like, really? That's that?

12:53Jessica Wynn:Anyway. way. That's an easy hack if that's a thing. That sounds like maybe it's a different pile, but can't you just lie? They're not going to be like, prove, well, you probably shouldn't do that either. But still, the whole thing to me, I don't know, I know plenty of white rich kids who bombed all of these SATs and standardized tests. I'm not sure. I'm not sure, man.

13:12Jordan Harbinger:The official lied from the college board is that the test is rigorously reviewed to remove biased questions and that score gaps mostly reflect unequal K-12 education, not flaws in the test itself.

13:27Jessica Wynn:That sounds reasonable. But so who's actually scoring well, then?

13:31Jordan Harbinger:This is where the critics start poking holes. First, the SAT has a messy history. It grew out of early 20th century ideas about intelligence that weren't exactly inclusive. They were tied to eugenics, IQ testing, and the belief that aptitude was fixed and evenly distributed, often along racial, ethnic, and class lines. And second, even today, wealthier students consistently score higher, and not just because they're smarter.

14:00Jessica Wynn:Because money buys prep.

14:01Jordan Harbinger:Exactly. Money buys prep, time, quiet places to study, tutors, coaching, and someone tracking your progress. So the test might be standardized, but access to preparation isn't.

14:15Jessica Wynn:But there are free options, right?

14:17Jordan Harbinger:There are. The Khan Academy offers free SAT prep materials like videos, articles, and practice tests, and it's genuinely solid. They even partnered with the College Board to create it. But free only helps if you have the support to use it. A kid using Khan Academy needs self-discipline, a quiet space, and probably someone checking in on their progress.

14:41Jessica Wynn:Which not every kid has, for sure.

14:43Jordan Harbinger:And a kid with a$3 ,000 tutor has a personalized study plan, someone holding them accountable and adapting the approach to address their specific weaknesses. Also, families who can afford these prep courses, like Barron's or Princeton Review, they just see bigger score gains.

15:00Jessica Wynn:Why? If the free content is good, why do the expensive options work better?

15:04Jordan Harbinger:Because it's not just about the content. It's about that structure and support.

15:09Jessica Wynn:So even if the test isn't rigged, the outcomes are kind of rigged.

15:12Jordan Harbinger:That's the heart of the criticism. And here's another issue. Some research suggests the SAT actually under predicts college performance for black and Hispanic students while slightly over predicting it for white students.

15:27Jessica Wynn:Sure. Sounds like a lot of the kids don't perform how the test predicts they're going to perform.

15:31Jordan Harbinger:Which raises the question, if GPA does a better job predicting success and the test reflects unequal resources more than raw ability, what exactly are we measuring?

15:43Jessica Wynn:Yeah, privilege, I guess, in some ways. And I hate that word for a lot of reasons because I think it's sort of overused. But we've created a system where you can buy a better score.

15:51Jordan Harbinger:You can buy preparation for a better score. But yeah, the effect is the same. Kids born into the top 1 % of income have a 1 in 4 chance of getting into elite schools. Kids born in the bottom 20%, it goes to a 1 in 300 chance. That's not a gap. That is a chasm. Wow. Yeah, and test prep is just one piece of it. Rich parents also have legacy admissions, fancy extracurriculars, and expensive sports. My kid plays lacrosse at a private club with professional coaches. Your kid plays pickup basketball at the park. Guess whose extracurriculars look better on paper?

16:30Jessica Wynn:The lacrosse kid. So even though my kid might be more resourceful, more resilient, more everything, that kid had better prep, yeah.

16:36Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, it's just a whole ecosystem that rewards privilege.

16:39Jessica Wynn:The whole college system kind of rewards privilege. But OK, so maybe test prep shouldn't be for sale at all. I don't know. That doesn't sound right either.

16:47Jordan Harbinger:That's the argument some people make, though. And it's why a growing number of schools are going test optional. So they're recognizing that the entire system is skewed.

16:56Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that makes some sense to me. In China, they tried to do this. So for people who don't know, they had like after school English and after school everything. and it became this weird race where it wasn't like some kids who needed English help went to tutors. It was everybody went to tutors for every subject after school. There was a multi-billion dollar industry in China that was just prep for everything, tutoring for everything. And it got so out of control because people who couldn't afford it couldn't afford it. And people who could afford it, they were getting another 20 hours of school every week or something.

17:31Jessica Wynn:It was just nuts, right? So they were doing so much better. And so what the government did is just overnight went, hey, these are illegal. So they just nuked this billion dollar industry or whatever in China. And I remember my Chinese lessons got super, super cheap after that because they were like, we now can hire 8 ,000 more teachers to do this. So the supply went way up and their competition went way up because everybody who couldn't teach local Chinese kids, which was every teacher in China, they were allowed to work on the internet to teach foreigners. And what do they do? What do they teach foreigners?

18:06Jessica Wynn:Chinese. Chinese as well. It went from like a couple of companies teaching online Chinese to half of the teachers in China teaching Chinese online. Yeah, I remember my company was like, if you renew now at your regular price, you get this. And I was like, can we negotiate? And they were like, honestly, yeah, they cut their prices way down. But anyway, that was good for me. But my point is the whole industry basically got nuked because it's an authoritarian regime that can say this business is illegal now and nobody's going to fight it. And it was like overnight. They just said you can't do that.

18:34Jessica Wynn:But here's the problem. All of those prep schools, they're shut down. So if you were sending your kid to after school, English, after school, Chinese history, after school, whatever, those are gone. But if you actually have a lot of money, you hire that teacher that used to teach 20 kids after school and they just come to your house. Yes. And that's legal because and also totally unenforceable, even if it weren't legal. So now it went from, hey, the top 10 % are getting extra tutoring to, hey, now the top 1 % are getting private tutoring and everybody else can't get access.

19:07Jordan Harbinger:Do you think the universities there made any changes knowing all this? I doubt it. Yeah, I don't think they did. Yeah.

19:14Jessica Wynn:Well, what a perspicacious transition into capitalism. We'll be right back after a few words from the companies who promise not to make you lacrimose. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Hexclad. One day, Jen just decided we're done with mediocre pans and replaced basically all of our cookware with Hexclad. I'm not exaggerating. She's been borderline obsessed ever since, gifted them to family, gifted them to friends. Hexclad is this really smart hybrid design where you get the performance of stainless steel and the convenience of nonstick in the same pan. They've got these patented laser etched steel hexagons that give you a legit sear.

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20:15Jessica Wynn:Just head to hexclad.com slash Jordan. Support our show and check them out at hexclad.com slash Jordan. Make sure to let them know we sent you. Bon appetit. Let's cook with Hexclad's revolutionary cookware. This episode is sponsored in part by Bombas. One of the goals this year and all year round is to stay comfy, and Bombas is leading that charge in my house. We love Bombas so much, it's all we wear. We even gift it to our family and our friends and our nanny. We're big fans of the grip socks, so we don't slip around on our floors. Bombas just launched their new sports socks, which are amazing for whatever you're into, running, golf, hiking.

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21:16Jessica Wynn:Head over to Bombas.com slash Jordan and use code Jordan for 20 % off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash Jordan. Code Jordan at checkout. Don't forget about our newsletter, Wee Bit Wiser. It comes out every Wednesday. It is an under two minute read. I promise you that. It's a gem from a past show or just from our regular lives from me and Gabriel to you directly. And again, it's highly practical, something that you can apply right away. And it's something you can skim real easy on Wednesday morning. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday.

21:49Jessica Wynn:Look, maybe they sort of are supposed to, but what are you going to do? Not take the highest scoring students because maybe they got extra tutoring? So that whole don't make it accessible, one, it doesn't work. Two, it's just unenforceable, even if you could get a law about it or regulation about it. I think the test optional thing is probably the way to go. So how many schools are test optional now? And by the way, test optional means what? You didn't take the SATs, but you can still apply to Michigan and they don't say, hey, where's your SAT score?

22:16Jordan Harbinger:They weigh it differently when they're looking at applications. I don't know the specifics, but you don't have to take the tests. So over 1 ,800 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. are test optional or test flexible. And that number grew significantly during COVID. So did testing just move online during COVID?

22:38Jessica Wynn:How did they do that? I remember how strict they were with all the proctoring.

22:40Jordan Harbinger:Remember, no one knew what the hell to do. And I think standardized tests just weren't very high on people's list of concerns. But COVID was this massive disruption and testing centers closed. Students just couldn't take the SAT or ACT. They didn't have the capacity to move it all online. And you know what they found? They could still identify qualified students. Their freshman classes didn't suddenly become unqualified disasters.

23:08Jessica Wynn:because they were using grades, which they found are a better predictor anyway. Basically, the tests were never as essential as they always claimed to be for the last century.

23:17Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, seems to be. And many schools liked the test optional policy because it increased applications. More applications means lower acceptance rates, which makes them look more selective, which improves their rankings.

23:30Jessica Wynn:And they charge application fees anyway. So if you're paying 100 bucks to apply, yeah, OK, we got a thousand more applications. Darn, we have to hire an extra person to go through it or start a week earlier. It's a revenue generator. Great. So it sounds like even the solution to the problem is driven by these weird incentives, though.

23:45Jordan Harbinger:I think that's just American higher education. It's incentives all the way down.

23:51Jessica Wynn:And the tests keep changing. I feel like that's part of the scam. The SAT announces, hey, we've updated the test. And suddenly your older brother's prep book from last year is useless. And the course login expired.

24:01Jordan Harbinger:And the scoring is changing, too. So you have to know what's new that you're prepping for. The ACT just announced they're broadening their score reporting. So they're going to keep the traditional 36-point scale. But now students will also get scores on two new readiness indicators, which are career readiness and understanding complex texts.

24:25Jessica Wynn:Huh. What does that even mean? Probably a good idea, but are they asking 16-year-olds how to file a W-2? I don't get it.

24:31Jordan Harbinger:No, it's more like, can you interpret workplace documents? Can you analyze technical information? But here's the thing. These changes require new prep materials, new books, new courses. The test evolves and the prep industry evolves with it. And everyone makes money.

24:48Jessica Wynn:Except the students. Yeah.

24:49Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, the students pay money. Whether they make money later is unclear.

24:53Jessica Wynn:Yeah, I remember I took, I think it was the ACT, or maybe this was even the LSAT, I don't know. And they were like, hey, your score will be ready in, I don't know, 10 weeks. But if you want it in three weeks or four weeks, you can pay$10 on a credit card and call this number. And I was like, I am not giving you$10 to get a score early that you already have that you're going to mail me. that means that you're waiting an extra month or two to mail me because you just want me to pay 10 bucks to get the score on your phone system so I absolutely refuse to do that and I remember telling all the my friends at law school that I was like I didn't pay those suckers 10 extra dollars and they were like how did you sleep like I didn't sleep until I got that score and you're just over here waiting for this letter in the mail and I was like the trick is man don't care don't care didn't get into law school no big deal and then I got my score and I was like it's fine.

25:47Jessica Wynn:It's wild to think that the test changed that much, but the whole thing was a racket from the jump.

25:52Jordan Harbinger:Oh, of course. Every little piece of it. And the SAT has gone through multiple revisions over the years and all the tests have. But the SAT specifically removed the essay requirement. They made the vocabulary less obscure. They added a no calculator math section. And every time they change it, there's this wave of panic. Like the test is different. You have to buy new materials.

26:15Jessica Wynn:Oh, man, no more lacrimose and perspicacious. I studied those words.

26:21Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, sorry. Unless you throw one of them in this conversation naturally and correctly, it was wasted effort.

26:27Jessica Wynn:That's a perspicacious observation.

26:31Jordan Harbinger:I'm not embarrassed to say I don't even know what that means.

26:34Jessica Wynn:How lacrimose indeed that you don't know what it means. But does it change that much? And if there are changes, do the prep materials stay up to date? How do you even choose between the 50 different brands of stuff for sale? Is one really better than the others?

26:46Jordan Harbinger:There are real differences between brands, but the marketing makes it sound like choosing between them is a life or death situation, which really it's more like choosing between a Fuji or a Gala Apple.

27:00Jessica Wynn:So they're the same, but some people prefer one over the other.

27:03Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, pretty much. Princeton Review is known for being strategy focused. They're all about test taking techniques, not knowledge. And Barron's is known for making practice questions way harder than the test, so the test will feel easy. So some students lose confidence studying with Barron's.

27:20Jessica Wynn:Wait, so they set kids up to feel like failures? Don't worry, it's for your own good.

27:25Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, unintentionally, I hope, but... Then there's Kaplan, which is the middle ground, and the book is really just an introduction to their online courses and tutoring. And then there's new players like PrepExpert, which was founded by a guy who got a perfect SAT score, which his material mentions constantly.

27:45Jessica Wynn:So annoying. Hi, I'm Chad. I got a 1600 on the SAT. Let me tell you my secrets, which are not just getting lucky and having a photographic memory.

27:53Jordan Harbinger:Don't date. But yeah, none of that would work for me. But all the prep offers strategy and some of it is useful, but some of it seems to be just motivational speaking disguised as prep. Believe in yourself and you'll score high. My favorite strategy tip from a real prep book I saw is try not to cry during the math section. It smudges the Scantron.

28:17Jessica Wynn:Wow. Yeah. But that is good advice, though. Although number two pencil doesn't really smear that much with tears. Ask me how I know.

28:23Jordan Harbinger:Oh, no. I'm sorry. I mean, the best advice is only cry in the shower. I don't know. But as far as the books, the official college board and ACT books, they just give you real practice tests with no frills, usually from old expired tests. Those are actually valuable because you're practicing with real questions. So that's what people should buy? It's a good place to start. No matter what, you don't need to buy all of them. The companies want you to think you need multiple books, several courses, in-app purchases, and social media validation. but they're all basically sharing the same strategies.

29:00Jessica Wynn:So what should people watch out for when choosing prep materials?

29:03Jordan Harbinger:So much. If a book or course promises to raise your score by 200 points, ask yourself how could they possibly guarantee that for every student. They can't. So don't fall for secret strategies. They're usually things like, read the question carefully. New editions are usually the same from five years ago, but the cover says 2026 edition and the price has gone up. And if anything says to always guess C, if you don't know the answer, return it or throw it out, because that is a myth.

29:34Jessica Wynn:So that's not true, I take it?

29:36Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, it never was. The tests are designed so that answer choices are distributed evenly. But this myth persists because it gives students a sense of control, but it's false control. The good prep materials focus on actual skills and understanding. The bad ones sell you shortcuts and hacks that don't work.

29:56Jessica Wynn:What a waste of money and study time. And the test prep books are marketed as some great equalizer. Like we said, can't afford a tutor, buy a$100 book.

30:04Jordan Harbinger:And the book only helps if you have time to use it, if you have parental support, that quiet place. It just assumes a level of privilege that not all students have. And the bigger conversation is, why are we putting so much weight on a four-hour test taken on a Saturday morning when you're 17?

30:23Jessica Wynn:and it's usually like, be there at 7.30, and you're like, dude, my brain doesn't function, and so you're giving an advantage to people who happen to be morning people, which very few teenagers are. It's really stupid. I always thought that, and I would get up super early, and it's, okay, I gotta drink coffee and stuff. It was just totally ridiculous, and then you find Adderall, and you're like, oh, okay, now it all makes sense. Anyway, when you put it like that, this is all insane. All right, that's high school, but what about when you're trying to get into a grad school. You got the GRE, you got the GMAT, the LSAT, all that stuff.

30:54Jordan Harbinger:This is where things get more interesting because these tests are weird. Logic games, data interpretation, argument analysis. If you've never seen these formats before, you take the exams, you're at a massive disadvantage.

31:09Jessica Wynn:I remember the LSAT logic games. These are literally questions like if Alice sits next to Bob and Carol can't sit next to David and Bob always sits next to both Frank and Alice and you're like, yeah, dude, get a bigger table. But it's a million of those. And you have to draw them and things like that so that you can visualize it. Or it's just, yeah.

31:28Jordan Harbinger:It seems absurd. But the thing is, these tests do measure something. So the logic games test your ability to work within complex rule sets and constraints, which is actually relevant to legal reasoning.

31:40Jessica Wynn:So these tests are more legitimate than the SAT?

31:43Jordan Harbinger:Not necessarily more legitimate, but they're testing different, more specialized skills. And because the formats are so unusual, prep materials can genuinely help. Repeated exposure to the same logical forms does improve performance. And good materials are written by actual instructors who've taught thousands of students and know exactly where people struggle.

32:06Jessica Wynn:So there are good and bad options even at that higher level.

32:09Jordan Harbinger:Oh, absolutely. The good ones break down the logic behind each question type, show you why answers are right and why the wrong answers are wrong. and they give you strategies that are based on understanding, not tricks.

32:22Jessica Wynn:And the bad books and courses, what do they do?

32:24Jordan Harbinger:They just make ridiculous promises. They go from 150 to 170 in four weeks, which just ignores that you can't build fundamental reading and analytical skills in a month. Or they push pseudoscientific study systems. Use our left brain, right brain method.

32:42Jessica Wynn:Right, total nonsense.

32:43Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, complete nonsense. The whole left brain, right brain thing is a myth that's been debunked for decades, but it sounds scientific, so publishers still use it. And then there's the bundling and upselling. The book is just a funnel to get you to buy their expensive online courses, their secret question banks or their coaching packages. There's all kinds of stuff like that.

33:05Jessica Wynn:It's kind of like a drug dealer. The first hit is cheap or free, but if you want the good stuff, you know.

33:10Jordan Harbinger:That is the business model. And for grad school tests, it works because the stakes are so high. You're not just trying to get into college. You're trying to get into law school or med school or business school, which directly impacts your career and earning potential.

33:27Jessica Wynn:At this level, each test has its own prep culture. There's more of a you will fail without this specific prep material mentality. Like I said, when I took the LSAT, even professors were like, you have to take a class for this. You have to. And I was like, oops. Yeah.

33:42Jordan Harbinger:And the LSAT crowd is particularly intense. There's this whole Reddit community where people compare scores. They share strategies. They just obsess over which prep materials to use. It's like a support group crossed with some insane competition.

33:59Jessica Wynn:That sounds right because it's lawyers. Yeah. And so we are all hyper. Michigan was hyper competitive and people did crazy things. Apparently all like top tier schools are like this where you'd go to the library and you go, I cannot find this reference material. And the librarian would go, OK, let me find it. And she would go and go, oh, it's missing. And you're like, OK, when do you think you might find it? And she goes, what is this for? And you're like, it's for an exam that's due tomorrow. and she's like, uh-huh, okay, who's the professor? And you're like, this person. And then she has to call and go, some asshole took the test book that all of your students need and hid it.

34:37Jessica Wynn:And you're like, how do you know they didn't just check it out? Because you're not allowed to. It's a reference, it stays at this desk. And I've been here for blah, blah, blah, which means somebody went and got it and stashed it. And like, it's a library, so there's no RFID. Now they probably have RFID or something, but like, you have to look through the whole library and maybe they put it in their backpack. So like, it's just gone. And so the professor has to email and be like, the deadline is now Tuesday. You don't need this. I've copied the relevant thing. Here it is. And if I find out who did this, I'm going to kill you.

35:09Jessica Wynn:And they never find who did it because who's going to admit that they did that? How are you going to find a book that somebody threw in the forest? Now you could probably look on camera, but back then you couldn't. Anyway, that's just an example of the type of crap that would go down at Michigan. It was actually insane. Anyway, so what are the go-to materials for the LSAT these days?

35:29Jordan Harbinger:The gold standard is the official LSAT prep tests, which is published by LSAC, the organization that makes the test. So these are actual retired LSATs. So you're practicing with the real questions. Then you've got power score Bibles, logic game Bible, logical reasoning Bible, reading comprehension Bible that goes on and on. A lot of Bibles. Yeah, it's fear marketing at its finest. But students feel pressure to buy four or five different essential books and courses per exam. And social media makes it worse. If you're not using what I'm using, are you even studying?

36:07Jessica Wynn:Yeah, again, even using the word Bible is ominous. But I suppose they're comprehensive. That's the idea.

36:12Jordan Harbinger:Definitely. But the problem is they're dense. We're talking 500 plus pages per book. And you're supposed to work through all three. There is the online LSAT trainer, which is more streamlined, or Manhattan prep, which focuses just on strategy. But students stress about choosing the right test prep.

36:32Jessica Wynn:Yeah, it must be extra complicated choosing GRE prep because it's the test for so many different master's degrees. It's just totally, it's one test for every graduate degree almost. It's crazy.

36:42Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, and the prep materials for the GRE are interesting because they try to be this one-size-fits-all. So they end up not great for anyone specific, but I guess it gets the job done. Practice tests are what preparing for the GRE is all about, because the GRE tests verbal reasoning and quantitative reasoning, and the vocab is brutal. Like, for the GRE, you do need to know lacrimose.

37:08Jessica Wynn:Ugh, okay, wait, I thought you said they took those words out of the SAT, but so the GRE still has all that crap?

37:14Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, yeah, they took them out of the SAT, but the GRE loves them. So there are whole books dedicated just to GRE vocabulary. Students make flashcards. They use vocab apps like Magoosh. And they spend months memorizing words they will never use again.

37:31Jessica Wynn:My GRE story is actually completely ridiculous. So what happens with the GRE, at least back in the day, and it's probably still like this. If you did well in the beginning, it would get harder. And if you didn't do as well, it would get easier. So if you bombed a bunch of vocab words, they would get a little bit lighter. If you did well on a bunch of math, it would get a little bit harder. And for some reason, I bombed the vocab, which is weird because I have a decent vocab. But you're right. I didn't have lacrimose and whatever all these other words at the tip of my tongue because I thought, oh, I did well on verbal sections before.

38:04Jessica Wynn:I'll be fine. Not how it works with the Jerry. And with math, I was like, well, I'm not doing a math degree of any kind. So I just have to do not terrible. Or maybe they don't even care about that. So I took the math section and I didn't really study for it. And I'm not good at math, okay, at all. And I took the math section and I was like, oh crap, I didn't bring a special calculator for this. I don't really know how to solve any of this. And it's all multiple choice. So I'm guessing my way through the math section. And it's just getting more ridiculous. Like it's instead of just a parabola, now it's got these symbols I've never seen before.

38:38Jessica Wynn:And it's like, how is this happening? It went from algebra to way harder algebra and calculus to way harder calculus to way harder stuff that I don't even think is calculus because I've never seen it, even though I took calculus in college. And I walked out of there just dizzy. And a couple of weeks later, I get my results and my math score is fire, like off the charts good. And I ended up getting a letter from MIT that was like, we'll fly you out here, put you up in a hotel or maybe it's a dorm. I don't know. we want you to take another special proctored math test. And if you do as well in that test as you did on the GRE, we have a full or partial scholarship for you in one of our programs.

39:20Jessica Wynn:So I guessed my way through the math section of the GRE so well that it caught the attention of MIT's mathematics program. And they were like dangling this scholarship in front of my face, which is actually hilarious because I didn't pass calculus and I had a tutor for algebra in college, okay? Like a hardcore tutor in high school for math. It's not my thing. That's a test design issue, first of all, if I can do that. But the fact that the whole test makes somebody like me bomb the vocab section and ace the math section, that was all the info I needed to know that this was complete nonsense.

39:56Jordan Harbinger:What is that about? Yeah. It's the ultimate fake it till you make it.

40:01Jessica Wynn:Yeah, but it was also like, okay, this test doesn't do anything. Nothing that it's supposed to do anyway. So is the GMAT any different? That's the business school one, right?

40:10Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, the GMAT's for business school. It's kind of its own special hell. It has this section called data sufficiency that literally makes people cry.

40:20Jessica Wynn:We're unpacking how the test prep industry figured out how to monetize teenage panic. Let's take a quick break so we can monetize something slightly less soul crushing. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Wayfair. If you came over to our house, I could literally give you a Wayfair walking tour, like those chandelier lights, Wayfair, sink fixtures, Wayfair, bathroom mirror, Wayfair, our bed frame, Wayfair, even the kids' outdoor toys and some of our outdoor decor, Wayfair again. And it wasn't some grand plan. It was just once you realized their purpose built for home, you keep ending up back there because it's so easy.

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41:18Jessica Wynn:That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. I've got homes.com as a sponsor for this episode. Homes.com knows when it comes to home shopping, It's never just about the house or the condo. It's about the homes. And what makes a home is more than just the house or property. It's the location. It's the neighborhood. If you've got kids, it's also schools, nearby parks, transportation options. That's why homes.com goes above and beyond to bring home shoppers the in-depth information they need to find the right home. It's so hard not to say home every single time. And when I say in-depth information, I'm talking deep.

41:54Jessica Wynn:Each listing features comprehensive information about the neighborhood, complete with a video guide. They also have details about local schools with test scores, state rankings, student-teacher ratio. They even have an agent directory with the sales history of each agent. So when it comes to finding a home, not just a house, this is everything you need to know all in one place, homes.com. We've done your homework. Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps the lights on around here, keeps my kids flush with test prep books and courses. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

42:28Jessica Wynn:Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. What is data sufficiency?

42:34Jordan Harbinger:Well, it gives you a question and two statements, and you have to determine if the statements together give you enough information to answer the question, but you don't actually have to answer the question.

42:45Jessica Wynn:That actually sounds fun, if not a little confusing.

42:48Jordan Harbinger:It's definitely a little confusing, but it's really meta. So you're testing whether you can answer, not answering. And it breaks people's brains. The prep materials for the GMAT are all about mastering this weird format. Manhattan Prep, Veritas, the official guide from GMAT. There's Instagram and Reddit groups about the GMAT. And they're just people stressing so hard. It's kind of entertaining to scroll through.

43:14Jessica Wynn:Oh, God. I'm so glad I didn't have social media like that when I took the L. That must make things much worse. because back then you'd go to your smart friends and go, oh my God, what do I do? And they go, did you buy a prep book? And you go, yeah. And they're like, okay, are you going through it? And you're like, yeah. And they're like, you're going to be fine. You're like, oh. But if you go on social media, it's did you buy 17 prep books? And did you go through the online course? And did you get the CD-ROMs? You know, that guy over here, he got a perfect score. So now they're changing the whole curve this year.

43:39Jessica Wynn:I heard they're going to give us less time. No, that's not true. How do you know? Like, it's just that over and over.

43:45Jordan Harbinger:You're just wasting all this time.

43:47Jessica Wynn:Yeah, all your study time is you or all your sleep time is you stressing about this and reading people on Reddit who are taking it and heard from their brother's cousin's friend's uncle who knows a guy that works at College Board that they're going to change the test this year. And it's like, no, they're not.

44:00Jordan Harbinger:Right. Yeah. Social media definitely makes things worse. There's Discord servers, there's Facebook groups, and they're just sharing their own personalized study plans. But there's just this constant comparison. Harrison, I'm taking this course. What are you using? Almost like test shaming or something.

44:19Jessica Wynn:Yes. So now they're competing over who has the most elaborate study set up.

44:23Jordan Harbinger:Right. It creates this anxiety spiral. You see someone post, I just scored a 175 on my practice test using power score Bibles. And you think, oh, no, I'm using something different. Maybe that's why I'm not scoring as high.

44:38Jessica Wynn:Even though correlation doesn't equal causation, etc.

44:41Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, and maybe that person was already good at standardized tests. Maybe they're naturally strong in logical reasoning. But your brain goes, they have more prep materials and they're doing better. So I need to buy more prep materials.

44:54Jessica Wynn:It couldn't be that they're just lying on the internet to make other people feel bad. That never happens. It's the same psychology as seeing someone's perfect Instagram life and thinking your own life is inadequate by comparison. And there's a part of you that's like, I don't think she lives on yachts and at fancy beachfront hotels, but I don't know. It sure looks like she does. His kitchen looks like Home Depot. Yeah.

45:13Jordan Harbinger:But the prep companies love this because it drives sales and they don't have to advertise. The students are advertising for them by posting about their materials online. And then there are really nerdy influencers, people who scored really high. And they now have YouTube channels or TikTok accounts where they share their study methods. And some of it can be helpful. Sure. Some of it's just humble bragging. But they all have affiliate links. use my code for 10 % off this prep course. Everybody's just making money.

45:46Jessica Wynn:So now those people are profiting off of other fellow students' anxiety, and the grift just goes deeper and deeper.

45:51Jordan Harbinger:Right, it really does. And look, I'm not saying all these resources are bad. Some YouTube channels offer genuinely free, helpful content, but it has become toxic in a lot of ways. Students feel like if they're not constantly consuming test prep content, they're falling behind. It's unhealthy, and it's the worst in the MCAT world. The MCAT is the medical school entrance exam, and it's part science test, part reading marathon, part experiment in human endurance.

46:21Jessica Wynn:But it weeds out the week, right? The exam itself is like eight hours long or seven and a half hours long. But I want my doctors to have high MCAT scores so that I know they can think under pressure for seven straight hours. I think maybe that should be advertised when looking for a doctor. But then again, it is a test and it's probably not a test of how good of a doctor you are.

46:40Jordan Harbinger:That's definitely why they hang their degrees on the wall. But studying for professional exams like MCAT, USMLE boards and the bar are intimidating by design. The sheer size of the book makes you feel like it must be comprehensive. It must have everything I need. But for something like the MCAT, there is useful content in there. And the MCAT covers an insane amount of material, biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, psychology, on and on. And good prep materials can condense that into digestible summaries and highlight the high yield topics.

47:19Jessica Wynn:High yield sounds like med school speak for this will definitely be on the test. Yeah.

47:23Jordan Harbinger:And students become obsessed with finding the high yield content because they can't possibly study everything in depth. And here's where it gets dark. The industry has created this culture of you will fail without this material. I saw a cover that really had printed on it in all caps, everything you must know or you'll die. And so will your patients. That is terrifying.

47:49Jessica Wynn:Buy this book or commit medical malpractice slash murder.

47:52Jordan Harbinger:It's fear marketing at its absolute finest. And for the MCAT alone, you might buy the Kaplan seven book set, the exam crackers set, and then add the Princeton Review courses for good measure.

48:06Jessica Wynn:Yeah, it's not reasonable to think you're going to go through all that prep.

48:09Jordan Harbinger:And it's so expensive and nobody reads all of them. But there's this anxiety that if you don't buy them, you're not doing enough. Pre-med students are all over social media, too, posting their study stacks on Reddit and pictures of just bookshelves full of materials. You know, if you're not using Kaplan and exam crackers and this other thing, are you even serious about med school? It's exhausting. And plus, some of these are total scams.

48:38Jessica Wynn:Really? At that level, people are getting scammed?

48:40Jordan Harbinger:Oh, yeah. I mean, outdated material repackaged as a new addition with a higher price tag, materials that blatantly copy from each other, question banks that are poorly written and don't actually match the exam style. All of that can hurt your performance.

48:56Jessica Wynn:So you can actually study the wrong way and end up doing worse.

49:00Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, absolutely. If you practice with bad questions or the wrong format, you're essentially training your brain incorrectly. It's like practicing basketball on a hoop that's two feet too low. Everything feels great in practice, and then you get to the real game and suddenly nothing works. There's actually a very public recent example of this. So Kim Kardashian failed the bar exam and said it was because she had studied with chat GPT. So someone with every resource at her fingertips. And she now claims she failed because she was using the wrong preparation method.

49:37Jessica Wynn:So first of all, chat GPT gives bar exam study advice and people are actually taking it. I mean, that's a you problem, dude.

49:44Jordan Harbinger:Apparently, which first of all, right. Bold choice. And second, let's be clear, this was not a she had no resources situation. I bet she absolutely had tutors, plural, very expensive ones.

49:57Jessica Wynn:Yeah. But as someone who like made the test or something, I'm guessing they didn't want to be in the Instagram post announcing the failure of their student who is either too dumb to have succeeded or didn't study.

50:08Jordan Harbinger:No tutor wants that credit. But the larger point stands. AI is not a substitute for actual test prep. You know, it can hallucinate facts, give outdated information, misunderstand the format, or confidently explain the wrong answer. So it can be a tool. It's just not the only tool.

50:28Jessica Wynn:The big test prep companies must know this. Come on.

50:31Jordan Harbinger:For sure. Kaplan, Barbary, all of them are already building their own AI systems. But those are being trained specifically on the test, the format, the scoring logic, not whatever the Internet happened to cough up.

50:46Jessica Wynn:Chad GPT is like that one confident guy in class who won't shut up but has clearly not done any of the reading.

50:53Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, there's always one of those guys. The takeaway here is that you can still fail if you prepare the wrong way. So quality is what matters. Oh, man.

51:04Jessica Wynn:So don't lose your mind if you can't afford every bit of material out there. This leads us to something I'm wondering about, which is the mental health aspect of all this. There's got to be a lot of stories about this.

51:14Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, it's brutal. and a massive problem that doesn't get talked about enough. So students feel like if they're not constantly engaging with the prep material, then they're slacking. And it pushes already stressed students into guilt-driven spending and overstudying. So burnout is real. And the books and courses themselves contribute to this. They're designed to make you feel like there's always more you could be doing.

51:39Jessica Wynn:Preparation for the test alone is definitely its own source of stress.

51:43Jordan Harbinger:And we're seeing real consequences. So test anxiety is through the roof. Students having panic attacks on test day, depression, burnout, imposter syndrome. Some students get so anxious they physically fall apart. There's reports of sudden migraines, nausea, shaking hands, racing heart. That awful feeling like you can't quite get a full breath. It's all incredibly common.

52:08Jessica Wynn:People don't just get nervous, though. Their bodies straight up revolt. During my LSAT, I remember you sit down and there's a guy next to you or something or a girl next to you. And the girl on my right didn't want to talk at all. She was just really like focused and looking at notes. And I was like, oh, don't talk to her. And the guy on my left was like, yeah, I'm already a lawyer. And I don't know. I remember this being like tough, but I took the California bar and I passed. And that guy left after like 20 minutes. He just got up and left. And I remember thinking like, this is a long bathroom break.

52:37Jessica Wynn:and then he just never came back.

52:38Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I saw somebody walk out of the GRE like five minutes in and they were visibly shaking. And I remember somebody barfing before it. People get freaked out and it messes with your brain too. There are plenty of documented cases of students just blanking on material. They absolutely know. Many reports staring at the page unable to comprehend the test like it's written in another language and others fixate so hard on the clock that they don't finish. And some people just shut down. And it can get even more extreme. There have been medical emergencies during high-stakes exams, people fainting, people collapsing.

53:20Jordan Harbinger:None of this is uncommon.

53:21Jessica Wynn:My cousin told me about this bar exam story where somebody basically had a heart attack taking the New York bar and everyone was like, I still f***ing question number 10. Like, nobody did anything. Obviously, people were freaking out, but not really stopping the exam. You know about this? Was this at Hofstra? Yeah, I think so.

53:41Jordan Harbinger:I was going to bring this up. It was a young, healthy woman who had graduated law school. Yeah. And she collapsed and went into cardiac arrest.

53:51Jessica Wynn:Yeah. So I heard about this. I don't know if my cousin was there just telling me about this because every law student in the world heard about it at the time. But oh, my gosh, how terrible. Was she OK? I would like to think she's OK.

54:03Jordan Harbinger:She was OK. She was rushed to the hospital. But what shocked people wasn't just the medical emergency. It was that according to everybody there, you can verify this with your cousin, the exam wasn't stopped. And students were told to just keep working while CPR was happening just a few feet away from them.

54:24Jessica Wynn:That's actually insane. Nothing says professional responsibility like stepping over an ambulance gurney with a dying person on it to finish question 143. That's so weird. Yeah.

54:35Jordan Harbinger:And the incident triggered outrage across the legal community. But it did force the New York State Board of Law examiners to say it was reviewing its procedures. I don't know if anything actually changed, but it fueled a lot of calls for test reform. The clock should stop argument asking whether any test should continue when someone's life is on the line.

54:58Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that should not be up for debate. I don't know. Controversial take.

55:02Jordan Harbinger:But the pressure is immense. There might be some people in the room who'd be pissed if the test was stopped. So it goes both ways. But severe test anxiety, it even qualifies as an actual anxiety disorder. And students with diagnosed anxiety, they can sometimes get accommodations like extra time or a separate testing room, more breaks if they have documentation from a psychiatrist.

55:27Jessica Wynn:But of course, getting that documentation also costs money.

55:32Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, the evaluation itself can be hundreds of dollars. So once again, wealthier students have an advantage.

55:38Jessica Wynn:Of course they do. And it's students with health care. But in America, that means people who have money because they have health care.

55:44Jordan Harbinger:The test prep industry doesn't help. They sell materials full of this motivational content, but they don't actually address the root causes of the anxiety, which is the high-stakes nature of the test itself and all this systemic pressure around it.

56:00Jessica Wynn:So is there science on this?

56:02Jordan Harbinger:Oh yeah, there's tons of research, and the evidence is pretty clear on what works. Spaced repetition, active recall, and practice under test-like conditions, those are the big three. But everyone crams anyway, and the good prep methods, they all align with this.

56:19Jessica Wynn:Students taking these exams, they don't need cheerleaders. They need somebody to explain why the answer is B and not C.

56:26Jordan Harbinger:If the material has lots of realistic questions with detailed explanations, that's a green flag. The courses should guide students to understand why things are right and wrong. If it spends more pages on branding and like proprietary systems than on actual practice, that's a big red flag.

56:45Jessica Wynn:How should someone actually use test prep effectively? Is there any wisdom to that we can share?

56:50Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, there's a lot of thoughts on it. First, you don't want to read any material like a novel, so don't start on page one and read straight through. You want to start with a practice test to identify your weak areas, then drill those sections specifically. Always track your progress, make notes on the types of questions you're getting wrong, and adjust your study plan based on data, not feelings. The Feynman technique is great for complex topics. Named after physicist Richard Feynman. So what is that exactly? So you explain a concept as if you're teaching it to a child. If you can't explain it simply, you don't really understand it.

57:31Jordan Harbinger:So you identify gaps in your knowledge and go back and study those specific areas. He was famous for being able to explain quantum mechanics in terms anyone could understand. And this process of simplifying complex ideas forces you to truly grasp them. There's also the Pomodoro technique for managing study time. You work in focused 25-minute blocks and then take a five-minute break. That prevents burnout and keeps you from getting overwhelmed.

58:02Jessica Wynn:So you're not staring at the screen for four hours straight and retaining nothing.

58:06Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, right. And your brain can only focus intensely for so long. So short bursts with breaks are more effective than marathon sessions. And then there's interleaving, which means mixing up subjects instead of studying one thing for hours, forces your brain to work harder to distinguish between concepts, which strengthens your understanding. So instead of doing 50 math problems in a row, you do 10 math, 10 reading, 10 science, then back to math. And it feels harder, but the learning sticks better.

58:37Jessica Wynn:This is bringing up some of my personal trauma from taking the bar exam. My God.

58:42Jordan Harbinger:The bar exam is its own beast. And it's not just about knowing the law. It's about knowing how to answer bar exam questions, which is a completely different skill, as you know.

58:54Jessica Wynn:Yeah. So the bar tests your ability to apply legal principles to fact patterns under time pressure. So you could be a brilliant legal scholar and still, in theory, fail the bar because you don't know the specific format and the strategy or you just needed too much time because you take a lot of time to craft your arguments. And I'm sure, by the way, that that was Kim Kardashian's problem.

59:15Jordan Harbinger:I'm sure.

59:15Jessica Wynn:She was so thorough that she ran out of time.

59:18Jordan Harbinger:You're so kind. But this is why good prep is essential. So most people take a bar prep course like Barbary, Themis, Kaplan. These courses cost three to four grand and they basically consume your life for two to three months.

59:33Jessica Wynn:We'll be back with more cheerful topics like inequality, manufactured scarcity, and teens crying in bathroom stalls at 6 a.m. But first, ads. We'll be right back.

59:45Jessica Wynn:And now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. I remember the lectures and the practice questions and the simulated exams and the study schedules. They told me exactly what to do every single day. Today, you're going to watch four hours of lectures and do 50 practice questions. It is exhausting, but it is structured and it's super expensive. Whoever decided preparing for a test should cost as much as a used car. It's that expensive. It's crazy to me.

1:00:10Jordan Harbinger:And there's a reason it got that insane. Barbary's parent company, West Publishing, they got hit with an antitrust class action.

1:00:19Jessica Wynn:I know all about this because they have insane policies. And it was actually one of my buddies from my law school. He sued them.

1:00:26Jordan Harbinger:Oh, crazy.

1:00:27Jessica Wynn:Yeah. And he got like a$60 million settlement because what they did is they agreed with other test prep companies. Hey, we are going to handle the bar and other people can handle this other one. So there was no competition. So Kaplan was basically like, oh, we just won't have bar prep. We'll just let West do it. And in return, West was probably, I can't remember the exact details, but West gave Kaplan, I don't know, the MCAT or something like that. So they said, you guys, we're going to make more money if we don't compete and we just actually collude, which is illegal. And so they carved at the market allocation, less competition, higher prices, etc.

1:01:03Jessica Wynn:And Wes paid into a settlement fund, but of course denied wrongdoing, bunch of dicks. But they had other insane policies like for the bar to take the New York bar. You had to go to New York. Imagine being a student and you have to rent an apartment in Manhattan for three months so that you can go to lectures and then study in that apartment. It's totally ridiculous. So this one enterprising gal in my class, what she did is she said, hey, there's enough of us that want to take the New York bar here at Michigan. Send us tapes of the lectures and we'll watch them. And they were like, oh, we have to be able to trust you because if you make copies of the tapes, we could lose money and blah, blah, blah.

1:01:40Jessica Wynn:So we all had to go and watch this tape in a classroom in Ann Arbor. So even people who lived in, I don't know, Alabama had to stay all summer in Ann Arbor, Michigan, paying Ann Arbor rent and food and study there instead of at home with their family or whatever so that they could watch two hours of VHS nonsense, take notes on it and go home and study every day. And I did not want to do that. And so I said, can't you just allow me to take these materials? I'm not going to share them. I'll pay for it. And they were like, no. And I said, what if I can't watch the tapes for some reason? And they were like, you would need a really good reason for that.

1:02:20Jessica Wynn:And I won't say too much about how I gave them a really good reason for that, but they can't ask you to prove that really good reason. They tried, but then it was like, oh, and you also can't be in the continental United States or I think in like Paris or Berlin or whatever, where they also offer New York prep exam prep things. And I was like, oh, I'm going to be in a Caribbean island. And they were like, BS, I want a non-refundable airline ticket and a hotel booking. So I went online and I bought a non-refundable ticket and a hotel and I went to the Caribbean and I studied for the bar on the beach with an iPod.

1:02:52Jessica Wynn:And they did not want me to do that. They even sent me all these like documents you had to sign and all this crap. And then they were like, and by the way, if you plug this iPod in, it's a special iPod that will call us and tell us that you're copying it and it'll destroy. And I was like, let me stop you right there. Apple's not letting you do that. And we both know that that's bullshit. So F you. And I'm going to copy this to another device and there's nothing you can do about it. And this company was crooked as hell. And they charged you like extra to do it. And this is for disabled people. These people deserved to be sued into oblivion.

1:03:24Jessica Wynn:And that's what my friend did.

1:03:25Jordan Harbinger:And they still exist. Good on your friend and good for you. I mean, going to the Caribbean for a couple of months, way cheaper than New York.

1:03:32Jessica Wynn:It was cheaper than staying in Ann Arbor to study. That's the most insane, ridiculous part is that's how much they're ripping you off everywhere. One of the best parts of this sort of legacy from my buddy's lawsuit is that Kaplan is now forced to offer bar prep. And so they are forced to compete with one another. I don't exactly know how you enforce that because can't you both just now charge way too much, which is I'm sure what they do.

1:03:54Jordan Harbinger:But yeah, I don't know how much it costs now. No wonder the pricing is so deranged. Plus, even though one course provides all the materials, some people on top of these costs, they're buying extra books and courses because they're just so anxious about failing and the advertising makes it seem like there's one piece of information inside that no other test prep has. And the fact is the bar exam is hard and you need more than test prep to pass. the pass rate for the bar, it varies by state, but it can be low as like 40 percent in some places.

1:04:30Jessica Wynn:Jeez, that's terrifying. So you've already been through four years of college, three years of law school, and you might still fail. And if you fail, you have to take it again and you have to pay again, usually for the exam, usually the prep, they let you keep it because, you know, you still have it. But then you got to deal with the shame and anxiety. So which, by the way, is not nothing because everyone knows. I know what you're thinking. Oh, just don't tell people you failed. It's not quite that simple because if you fail, usually you've got a job offer before that. And so there was a woman at my law firm and another guy at my law firm, and our jobs started because they got a job offer.

1:05:05Jessica Wynn:And the job's okay. What you're gonna do is study when you're not working. And basically, they just don't give those people any work. So you realize like, oh, JT's not on any projects. Oh, yeah, he's studying for the bar. And it's like, oh, he failed the bar because otherwise he would have taken it, you know, earlier before the job started. And then you get people who fail again. And it's like, hey, we've been working here for a year and you're just sitting in a room studying for the bar, getting paid, by the way, by the law firm. And that's kind of nice. But it also is totally counteracted by the fact that the entire office knows that you failed the bar exam two times.

1:05:38Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, the resentment.

1:05:39Jessica Wynn:Yeah. So it's tough. And you feel bad because these are not dumb people at all. OK, these are smart people who made it through law school and failed the standardized test. The reason I'm giving Kim Kardashian extra sweat is one, she's a billionaire and has resources to get a tutor. And two, I don't believe she went to law school. I think she's just taking the bar and being like, I don't need law school, which is not true. Apparently, given her first attempt was a giant mess.

1:06:05Jordan Harbinger:In California, you just need a lawyer to sponsor you, right?

1:06:09Jessica Wynn:That's right. And if you're Kim Kardashian, you can just ask one of daddy's friends to say that you're good enough to practice law and you're good enough to practice law as long as you pass the bar. So people throw money at any resources that might help, I suppose, when it comes to this to avoid the shame, the anxiety and dealing with that. Is there anything in your$500 book that's not in a$4 ,000 course?

1:06:30Jordan Harbinger:Honestly, probably nothing, but it makes you feel like you're doing everything possible to pass. And that peace of mind is worth something, even if the content is redundant.

1:06:42Jessica Wynn:So it's like emotional support materials.

1:06:45Jordan Harbinger:Yeah. And look, I don't want to dismiss that entirely. If having that extra test prep reduces your anxiety and helps you feel more confident, that has value. The placebo effect is real, even if it's a$500 placebo.

1:07:00Jessica Wynn:Is it the same in other countries to international students who want to study in the United States? Do they have the same hoops to jump through? I imagine they would.

1:07:07Jordan Harbinger:Oh, man, yeah. International students applying to U.S. colleges or grad programs, they have to take all the same tests, SAT, GRE, GMAT, plus English proficiency tests like TOEFL or IELTS. So they're taking more standardized tests. And the prep materials for TOEFL are their own industry. You've got books, courses, apps, all designed to help non-native speakers improve their English skills specifically for this one test.

1:07:37Jessica Wynn:Is the TOEFL hard? That seems like it would be. All that stuff seems like it would be hard.

1:07:41Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I mean, it really depends on your English proficiency, but it's testing academic English, reading scholarly articles, listening to lectures, writing essays. And that's very different from conversational English. So you can be fluent in everyday English and still struggle with the TOEFL.

1:07:58Jessica Wynn:So international students are at a disadvantage from the start.

1:08:01Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, in many ways they are. And they're often paying international student tuition, which is significantly higher. So they're paying more money to face more barriers. And the test prep materials assume a certain cultural knowledge that international students just might not have, like referencing American history or literature that's not familiar to students from other countries. So that's a subtle disadvantage that Native students don't even have to think about.

1:08:29Jessica Wynn:Yeah, so it's not just language, it's cultural context, which is probably the argument for why the test used to be easier for white people. It's not just about sailing, it's about, who knows, other things that I didn't even notice because, I don't know, I'm white, I don't know. Or that argument was BS, I don't know, I'm open to both interpretations.

1:08:44Jordan Harbinger:I think there's something to that. And for wealthy international students, this is where the tutoring industry really thrives. In countries like China, like you mentioned before, and South Korea, there's a massive test prep industry specifically for U.S. college admissions. Some families are spending$100 ,000 or more just on tutoring and test prep, and they get admissions consultants just to get their kid into an American university.

1:09:13Jessica Wynn:That's insane. So we've exported our inequality problem. You're welcome.

1:09:17Jordan Harbinger:The American standardized testing system has just it's a global industry.

1:09:22Jessica Wynn:So is teaching to the test inherently bad? Because part of me thinks, OK, students need to pass this stupid test to move forward in life. Shouldn't we teach them how to pass it? I know I kind of asked you earlier, but I'm still hung up on this.

1:09:33Jordan Harbinger:Well, on one hand, these tests are gatekeepers, right? If you don't pass, you don't get into college or grad school or whatever. So pragmatically, yeah, students need to learn how to take them. But teaching to the test, it means you're optimizing just for test performance, not for actual learning or understanding. So you're teaching students tricks and strategies instead of critical thinking and deep knowledge.

1:09:59Jessica Wynn:Is that so bad if it gets them where they need to go?

1:10:02Jordan Harbinger:In the short term, no. But long term, those skills might not transfer. You've learned how to game the SAT, but you haven't learned how to write clearly or think analytically. That'll probably come to bite you. Those are the skills you actually need in college and life.

1:10:19Jessica Wynn:So we're trading real education for test scores.

1:10:22Jordan Harbinger:In many cases, yes. And students, they pick up on this. They learn that school isn't about curiosity or understanding. It's just about performing well on tests.

1:10:32Jessica Wynn:That is depressing.

1:10:33Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, it is. and it kills intrinsic motivation. So students who might have loved learning, they become focused on grades and scores instead. Ideally, we'd have assessments that actually measure critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, but those are hard to standardize and expensive to grade. So we default to these multiple choice tests that are easy to score, but limited in what they can measure.

1:11:00Jessica Wynn:Is there any oversight for these prep companies, can they just claim whatever they want?

1:11:04Jordan Harbinger:Pretty much. There's no governing body that vets claims. It's basically the nutritional supplement industry of education. Lots of marketing, little oversight. And when challenged, they hide behind disclaimers in tiny print. Results may vary. Individual success depends on effort and aptitude or whatever they write.

1:11:25Jessica Wynn:So they can be as dishonest as they want because there's just no consequences.

1:11:29Jordan Harbinger:There's some market consequences, but they only come in the form of bad reviews and word of mouth. But legally, they're mostly untouchable. There should be oversight, at minimum requiring evidence for claims like average score increases by so many points. But it's tricky because you get into free speech issues. Can the government tell a publisher what they can and can't claim about their book?

1:11:54Jessica Wynn:So this is how people get scammed. Oh, yeah.

1:11:56Jordan Harbinger:Scammers will call parents saying your child requested SAT prep materials through the college board. We just need your credit card. They have names, addresses, school information, even the date and location of the scheduled test. So it all seems completely legitimate.

1:12:12Jessica Wynn:Wow. So these are scammers that are getting this information as much as a company selling materials.

1:12:17Jordan Harbinger:Right. Correct. The scammers are getting them from data breaches or purchase lists or just looking at social media at kids talking about when they're taking the test. So there's a whole underground market for student information. And once they have it, they use it to seem credible.

1:12:35Jessica Wynn:That is evil. So they're preying on parents who are already stressed about their kids' futures for these bastards.

1:12:41Jordan Harbinger:And parents fall for it because the caller has really specific information. One parent told the Better Business Bureau, the guy who called knew my daughter's name, her school, her test date, everything. It seemed completely real. And he gave his credit card information. So you just have to really be weary of unsolicited calls. The real college board will never ask for credit card information over the phone. The Better Business Bureau has received hundreds of complaints about this. And the emotional toll is huge. There's embarrassment in falling for a scam and the violation of trust. And it seems that these scammers never get caught.

1:13:22Jessica Wynn:Yeah, I know. So is AI going to disrupt this entire industry as well? You know, speaking of ChatGPT.

1:13:27Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, but it could be used for good. AI could provide personalized study plans, adaptive practice questions that adjust to your skill level, instant feedback on essay writing. And it could be way cheaper than these traditional prep courses. you could just hire a real human tutor.

1:13:47Jessica Wynn:But I'm guessing the big companies will just charge the same amount and pocket the difference, or they'll create a new tier premium AI tutoring, five grand.

1:13:54Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, my money's on that outcome, unfortunately. But there's also a movement toward reducing the importance of standardized testing overall. More schools going test optional, more focus on holistic admissions that consider essays and extracurriculars and letters of recommendation.

1:14:13Jessica Wynn:Do you think that's the future?

1:14:14Jordan Harbinger:I hope so, because at the end of the day, these tests are imperfect measures of very specific skills. They don't capture creativity or perseverance, leadership, emotional intelligence, any of the things that actually matter for success. But they are convenient for institutions, and they're very profitable for companies that make them. So whether they're good for students is a much bigger question. COVID gave us a real world experiment. Colleges went test optional, admissions still worked, and surprise, the sky did not fall.

1:14:50Jessica Wynn:So maybe we don't need them at all.

1:14:53Jordan Harbinger:Maybe not, or maybe we just need to rethink what we're testing and how. But as long as these tests exist, the prep industry will exist too. Because fear plus confusion equals marketplace.

1:15:06Jessica Wynn:That should be on a t-shirt.

1:15:09Jordan Harbinger:In the meantime, if you are prepping, just be smart about it. Look for materials that break things down by skill, not just by test section. You want to see things like reading comprehension, main idea, not just section one, right? Do lots of practice questions that have clear explanations. Make sure the difficulty and format, actually feel like the real test, not confidence inflating stuff, and just read reviews from real people on Reddit and College Confidential. There's all kinds of test prep forums, not just the marketing copy to look at. So you just start with those official practice tests.

1:15:48Jordan Harbinger:They're often cheap. Khan Academy is a great place to begin. YouTube also has genuinely excellent free content from experienced educators, especially for the high stakes exams. So you don't have to spend a fortune. And if you do spend money, one good book or course used properly is better than five mediocre ones you never open.

1:16:10Jessica Wynn:Test prep doesn't get you into college or grad school. You do. And these materials are just tools and not all necessary ones. So if anything promises to get you into med school, law school and Hogwarts. Check the fine print. If test prep really worked the way it's advertised, nobody would ever take the test twice. Thanks, Jess, for helping us make the grade. And thank you all for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday direct to me, Jordan at JordanHarbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, all at JordanHarbinger.com slash deals. I'm at JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

1:16:43Jessica Wynn:You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Jessica on her sub stacks between the lines and where shadows linger. We'll link to those in the show notes as well. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Tata Sadlowskis, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. And man, you don't want to see my LSAT score. Also, we try to get these as right as we can. Not everything is gospel, even if it is fact-checked. So consult a qualified professional before applying anything you hear on the show, especially if it's about your health and well-being.

1:17:15Jessica Wynn:Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism and knowledge we doled out today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time. Urologist Dr. Justin Hooman reveals why fertility, testosterone, and erections can be your earliest warning signs of heart and metabolic disease and why most men miss the signal. Our testosterone levels start to decline starting at the age of 30. We say one to 2 % every year.

1:17:46Jessica Wynn:The reproductive health is a snapshot of overall health. So if you do have low sperm counts, it's kind of a wake up call. Hey, fix your overall health picture. I try to keep it simple. What's good for your heart is good for your testicles. It's good for your sperm. So lifestyle is one of them. Within that, I talk about diet, exercise, sleep, and stress. Optimize your diet, minimize your processed foods, vegetables, lean proteins. Exercise wise, combination of cardio, heavy weightlifting, That's good for your hormonal health. We know you need good testosterone levels within the testicle in order to have good sperm health.

1:18:19Jessica Wynn:Testosterone replacement therapy, that shuts down your testosterone. There's genetic aspect to sperm health. There's not much you can do from a genetic standpoint. And then supplements is something a lot of guys talk about. So there's certain supplements within the fertility category that can help. That's how you optimize. There's no question about it. We're unhealthier, right? We're less healthy now than we were 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago. We're eating more processed foods. We wake up, we're sitting at a desk all day, coming back, watching Netflix all day, and rinse and repeat. That's the whole thing.

1:18:48Jessica Wynn:It's unhealthy living, really. It's poor food, poor exercise. We're consumed by screens, and all of that just ultimately leads to unhealthy life. Men really aren't engaging in the healthcare system. But at the end of the day, it's not so objective as your cardiovascular health. We've been reproducing for however long as humans. All you really got to do is, what's good for your heart health,

1:19:07Jordan Harbinger:your overall health, is good for your reproductive health.

1:19:09Jessica Wynn:Whether you're in your 20s, your 40s or facing infertility, episode 1254 of the Jordan Harbinger Show could change how you think about men's health. If you like this show, there's another podcast you should check out. If you want to stay informed about what's happening around the world without drowning in noise, check out the President's Daily Brief. It's built for people who want the big stories fast and clear. Think 20 minutes in the morning, then a quick 10-minute update in the afternoon, just focused coverage of the developments shaping the world right now from the Middle East and Venezuela to China, Russia, and beyond, with an emphasis on what actually has real-world consequences for the United States.

1:19:43Jessica Wynn:The show's hosted by Mike Baker, a veteran of the CIA with decades of firsthand experience, so you're getting smart analysis from somebody who's been inside the system. You get straightforward context to help you understand what's happening and why it matters. Follow the President's Daily Brief wherever you get your podcasts, and stay ahead of the curve.