SAT scores fell this year and people are trying to figure out why. The average score for "critical reading" (previously called "verbal") fell to 503, down five points from 2005. The average math score fell to 518, from 520. (The SAT is scored from 200 to 800.)

Interestingly, the results came several months after many colleges reported what to them were surprisingly low scores for this year's incoming college freshmen.

The College Board, which runs the tests, noted that the whole test -- at three hours and 20 minutes -- is 50 minutes longer than the old one. That's because of the inclusion of a new, third section for writing -- which, of course, while worthy, carries with it questions about necessarily subjective marking.

Then there's the fact that fewer students are taking the test a second time, which typically boosts scores by 30 points. That may well be because the price of the exam has been hiked to $41.50 from $28.50 -- an issue for poorer students. Meanwhile, the parents of affluent students pour more money each year into ever-more-expensive SAT preparation.

"When a new test is introduced, students usually vary their test-taking behavior in a variety of ways, and this affects scores," noted the wonderfully named Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, of the latest scores, adding that the decline "mathematically means almost nothing."

Or maybe the new test is just a tad tougher than the year before.

One year does not a pattern make. But you have to wonder if the scores might be affected by the fatigue of students. You also have to wonder if the attention-deficit disorder of our electronic-device-instant-messaging world may be coming home to roost. Will it finally kill developed thought, or what passes for it in the endurance test known as the SAT?

Admissions for sale

As if the economic data did not show it enough already, America is increasingly a plutocracy, where the children of the rich and famous get ever-bigger advantages. Daniel Golden, a Wall Street Journal reporter, details this in his new book, The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges -- And Who Gets Left Outside the Gates (Crown Publishing Group) $25.95. (Answer to the last part of his title: the middle class.)

Mr. Golden explores how such colleges as Brown (which has always particularly loved celebrities) and Harvard (which also does but doesn't have to chase them so frenetically) reject middle-class kids in favor of those of rich people and celebrities -- even when the latter students have poor SAT scores and other big negatives.

There are numerous entertaining examples, but one good one is how Lauren Bush, the president's niece, applied to Princeton a month after the application deadline had passed but was given "special dispensation" and admitted despite "SAT scores considerably below the typical Princeton student" -- or the special attention lavished by Brown administrators on the likes of Jane Fonda's daughter. Then there are the sons of Al Gore and Bill Frist. . . .

As Census Bureau data show an increasing percentage of Americans living below the poverty line and without medical insurance, and with inflation-adjusted salaries falling for most people, the further signs that America is turning into a winner-take-all society in which much of the winning depends on choosing rich parents is troubling for a democracy that prides itself on also being a meritocracy.

One sometimes gets the feeling that People magazine's board of editors and the admissions committees of these fancy schools are one and the same.