Henry Petroski Quotes

I'm not exactly a maths genius - I'm really good at maths, maths was my favorite subject in school, but I wasn't a genius.

I really liked English literature, a subject I did really well at.

I'm really good at math and history, but I suck in English.

With my academic achievement in high school, I was accepted rather readily at Princeton and equally as fast at Yale, but my test scores were not comparable to that of my classmates. And that's been shown by statistics, there are reasons for that.

If there's one thing that 'No Child Left Behind' has proven, it's that more academics don't make for smarter children - or even higher test scores. And yet we somehow refuse to accept this reality.

My favorite subject probably was math. I love math. Figures just intrigue me. I was really good at math. English probably was my worst subject. But I used to write a lot of poetry. I used to write poetry all the time.

Second, when comparing private school and public school test scores, it's like apples and oranges. Public schools have to take everyone, but private schools can be selective. It's not accurate or fair to compare the job they do.

If there's going to be an SAT, it's probably practical to invest in a book or perhaps in a course, but I'm sorry to say, I went to some classes that my kids took and it was clear in school that what they were doing was just SAT training.

I was a math guy as a kid. I was really good at math. I wasn't particularly interested in it.

I'm a good scholar when it comes to reading but a blotting kind of writer when you give me a pen.

If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn't be here. I guarantee you that.

Many people want to send their children to faith schools because they get good exam results, but they're not foolish enough to believe that it's because of faith that they get good exam results.

I read so slow. If I have a script, I'm going to read it five times slower than any other actor, but I'll be able to tell you everything in it. It kills me that there are standardized tests geared towards just one kind of child.

There have been studies that clearly state that children who are exposed to arts education at a young age will in fact do markedly better in their SAT tests.

I wasn't a very good student in elementary school and had a hard time with reading and writing.

In K-12, almost everybody goes to local schools. Universities are a bit different because kids actually do pick the university. The bizarre thing, though, is that the merit of university is actually how good the students going in are: the SAT scores of the kids going in.

I went to a public school through sixth grade, and being good at tests wasn't cool.

I'd never taken an SAT prep course. They were for weaker students.

I don't regard the fact that there's a disparity in test scores nearly as importantly as I do the need for diversity, because I know from long experience that test scores, though useful, are a very limited measure of things that matter in choosing students.

The SAT is not perfect. We all know smart, knowledgeable people who do badly on standardized tests. But neither is it useless. SAT scores do measure both specific knowledge and valuable thinking skills.

If you're last in your class at Harvard, it doesn't feel like you're a good student, even though you really are. It's not smart for everyone to want to go to a great school.

Well, I don't think that the SAT is a scam.

You still remember your SAT scores. And everybody else does too. Everybody's forgotten everything about themselves, everything else about high school. They remember their SAT scores.

Scientific research and other studies have demonstrated that arts education can enhance American students' math and language skills and improve test scores which in turn increase chances of higher education and good jobs in the future.

The Scholastic Aptitude Tests do not predict success any better than the socio economic status of the parents.