May 4, 2005
SAT essay advice: go long!
The ability to write well is more important than ever. Alas, it seems the standardized testing pajandrums' efforts to add an essay portion to the SAT has a few problems:
Dr. Perelman is one of the directors of undergraduate writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He did doctoral work on testing and develops writing assessments for entering M.I.T. freshmen. He fears that the new 25-minute SAT essay test that started in March - and will be given for the second time on Saturday - is actually teaching high school students terrible writing habits.Perelman found that the strongest predictor of score was length.
"I have never found a quantifiable predictor in 25 years of grading that was anywhere near as strong as this one," he said. "If you just graded them based on length without ever reading them, you'd be right over 90 percent of the time."400 words is what you need to shoot for here, kids.
He was also struck by all the factual errors in even the top essays. . .Emphasis added. Oy. This reminds me of one of my smartass high school friends, whose advice for debate team was to make up facts as you went, since it was faster than recalling real ones and harder to counter on the spot (unless faced with an opponent of similarly fluent mendacity, of course).Dr. Perelman contacted the College Board and was surprised to learn that on the new SAT essay, students are not penalized for incorrect facts. The official guide for scorers explains: "Writers may make errors in facts or information that do not affect the quality of their essays. For example, a writer may state 'The American Revolution began in 1842' or ' "Anna Karenina," a play by the French author Joseph Conrad, was a very upbeat literary work.' " (Actually, that's 1775; a novel by the Russian Leo Tolstoy; and poor Anna hurls herself under a train.) No matter. "You are scoring the writing, and not the correctness of facts."
SAT graders are told to read an essay just once and spend two to three minutes per essay, and Dr. Perelman is now adept at rapid-fire SAT grading. This reporter held up a sample essay far enough away so it could not be read, and he was still able to guess the correct grade by its bulk and shape. "That's a 4," he said. "It looks like a 4". . .You can't base a lot on one essay," Dr. Camara of the College Board admitted. He said that was why the new SAT writing section also included 49 multiple-choice questions on grammar and style. Multiple-choice counts for 75 percent of the new writing grade; the essay 25 percent. "The multiple-choice makes the writing test valid," he says. In short, the most untrustworthy part of the new SAT writing section is the writing sample.
Posted by David on May 4, 2005 9:38 AM
There are so many elements needing comments, but here I offer only one:
I can see why length (in general, not in every case) can be correlated with quality, because people who are struggling to write sentences and paragraphs and put ideas together aren't going to produce much in the way of quantity. Most of the 25 minutes is going to be taken up just trying to put a few words together and these folks are not likely to be the quality writers.
On the other hand, people who are skilled in verbal expression in general, in writing in particular and are comfortable in the realm of ideas, are going to be able to put an essay together at the drop of a hat (wonder where that expression comes from). They will be able to discuss both sides of a question (e.g. the pros and cons of tight security measures in an open society) with ease, coming up with 4 or five on each side of the issue and giving examples.
Couple of things come to mind. The questions must be general enough that anyone over the age of 10 can discuss them easily (since you're testing on ability to write, not profundity of insight or being conversant with current events).
You're likely to be missing the thoughtful person who writes less because he/she outlines it first, then fills in the details, then re-reads and cleans up grammar, punctuation, etc.
However, all that said, I have to hire and supervise people who can barely take a telephone message. I'd be thrilled if they could put a few intelligible words on paper. That background makes me just a bit more hopeful that an SAT essay might encourage schools to promote writing as a skill, as well as an art.
What's wrong with essay questions like:
What I did last summer.
Why a dog is a better pet than a cat.
Etc. Sure, they're dumb topics, but they would let the examiners know whether or not the prospective college student could organize his/her thoughts, write sentences and paragraphs and produce a coherent essay.
Down with logorrhea!
Posted by: Sarah
on May 5, 2005 5:30 PM
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