The SAT is designed to measure the verbal and math reasoning abilities of high school juniors and seniors. These abilities develop over a long period of time and are independent of a particular school curriculum. The performance of seventh and eighth graders on the SAT is amazing, especially when considering their age. Although these students do, on average, perform slightly less well than students belonging to the group for whom the test is designed, many of them score as well as, or better than, many high school students. The use of the SAT by talent identification programs does not seem to penalize students who choose to take the test. For many talent identification programs, the SAT provides an additional mechanism to identify, guide, and reward young students who have exceptional academic talent.