Are the SAT tests seriously flawed?

Apologies for the length of this post, but since SATs are still used by a lot of schools, I think it is worth reading.

I signed up with a tutoring company to do math tutoring. I did not do this for the additional income but because I am trying to prepare for my retirement and I thought that tutoring would be something that I could do. Unfortunately, the company has not been able to find any students for me, but they offer a course for teaching SAT, for which they are certain that they can find me students. I am currently taking the course. The training does not cost me anything (actually they pay me).

If you want to see some eye opening material I suggest you go to the book store and take a look at the book Cracking the SAT, which is the textbook for the course. The attitude in the book is a barely concealed contempt for the writers of the SAT tests, Educational Testing Service, which, apropo of nothing, is headquartred not too far from where I live.

In the introductory material on the math SAT, the book points out that what is being discussed is not math, but how to take the math SAT, which is something much different. The fundamental flaw of the SAT is that it is nearly all multiple choice. The two basic methods for taking advantage of this are process of elimination and plugging in the answers, labeled respectively, I kid you not, as POE and PITA.

The thought behind process of elimination is that if you can eliminate at least one of the choices then a random guess at the remaining choices is advantageous. For difficult numeric questions, there are always some incorrect answers that can be arrived at by simply adding or multiplying two of the numbers presented in the problem. ETS makes it easy to determine which questions are difficult because the questions are presented in increasing order of difficulty. The book claims that for difficult questions, if there is choice of “None of the above,” it is never the correct answer.

The idea behind plugging in the right answer is very simple. If, for example, an equation is presented and the student is asked to solve for x, then all the student has to do is plug in the various choices and see which one works. The answers are always presented from smallest to largest and if it is possible to determine if a choice is too small or too large, then simply start with the middle, C, and move either forwards or backwards. In most cases, it is quicker to solve for the correct answer than to try plugging in answers, but for a weak student who is completely baffled by the problem, this presents an opportunity for solving it.

I have heard stories from people that by taking an SAT prep course, a student can increase math scores from 100 to 200 points without knowing any more math. For the SATs to be so easily gamed, does this mean that there is something very wrong with their design? Do I compromise my ethics by teaching such a course, or can I justify what I do by saying that I am helping to force the ETS to reevaluate their way of doing things?