The Origins and Evolution of the SAT
Although the first SAT test was administered in 1926, if you are looking for the roots of the test, you have to look all the way back to the beginning of the 20th Century to the development of the first standardized intelligence tests. Alfred Binet, a French psychologist, teamed up with French physician Theodore Simon to develop an instrument that would give psychologists and educators the ability to assess mental retardation among French School children. Between 1905 and 1908 Binet and Simon worked in concert to develop an assessment that would allow them to quickly and effectively compare the different levels of psychological and cognitive functioning between people. Using a series of increasingly difficult questions, the Binet-Simon tests were used to measure attention, memory and verbal skills. In 1916, Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman integrated the findings of the Binet-Simon research and released the “Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale” AKA the “Stanford-Binet” IQ test which today is on its 5th revision and remains a popular assessment in the field of Intelligence Testing.
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