I'm (un)fortunate enough to have taken the SAT long enough ago to have had analogies on it. I suffered through them, scoring disproportionately poorly on them as compared to my math score. It was frustrating since I'm a voracious reader. I did not understand why such an important test would require memorizing so many obscure words to perform well, especially since most of the math section is about solving puzzles and trick questions. It seemed a completely useless skill.
It was years later that my (bilingual) wife explained her view on the analogies. She saw them as logical puzzles to figure out. If a student understands word roots and has some concept of foreign (romantic) languages or latin, it is simple for them to apply this knowledge to remove possible answers, figure out properties of the words, and solve the analogy.
My high school (even with 3 years of mostly worthless spanish) never presented me this toolbox. We spent 2 years in english classes with SAT prep vocabulary tests. We memorized random words and their definitions. It never occurred to me that this was contrary to the purpose of the verbal section of the test.
It is sad that people seem to feel the same way about the math section as I felt about the analogies section. "There's no way I can memorize every possible answer."
It was years later that my (bilingual) wife explained her view on the analogies. She saw them as logical puzzles to figure out. If a student understands word roots and has some concept of foreign (romantic) languages or latin, it is simple for them to apply this knowledge to remove possible answers, figure out properties of the words, and solve the analogy.
My high school (even with 3 years of mostly worthless spanish) never presented me this toolbox. We spent 2 years in english classes with SAT prep vocabulary tests. We memorized random words and their definitions. It never occurred to me that this was contrary to the purpose of the verbal section of the test.
It is sad that people seem to feel the same way about the math section as I felt about the analogies section. "There's no way I can memorize every possible answer."