Well, at the risk of sounding politically incorrect or racist: One of my strongest memories regarding performance on the SAT was hearing comments from black students who did poorly and Asian students who did poorly.

Black students: “The test is racially biased”.

Asian students: “I need to study harder”.

I went to Catholic school/high school in the SF/Bay Area and participated in one of the most academically rigorous programs there (St. Francis High School in Mountain View). The toughest competition I can recall, when it came to things like AP courses, Speech & Debate, etc, came from Asian kids. I was raised with a very Midwestern German work ethic and taught from a young age about academic and athletic excellence and hard work, but they were at a completely different level.

It’s sad, really, because the now old-fashioned American virtues of study, hard work and self-sacrifice, which made this country such a great success, are in critically short supply amongst American youth.