The goal of the paper is to understand to what degree the student success depends on teaching practices and materials, and to what degree it is due to differences in background, including prior knowledge, skills, preparation, abilities, etc. We analyzed the existing research on outcomes of the SAT and ACT in the United States and the Unified Country Exam (UCE) in the Russian Federation, since those exams usually considered as a good indicator of skills, preparation, and abilities. In the US, exams concentrate on identifying success in college studies. In the RF, exams concentrate on identifying gifted students. According to our analysis, the tests are based on different goals which they respectively satisfy. [For the full proceedings, see ED621892.]