<p>I don't have the actual essay or anything, I'm just wondering why I would get an 8/12 with these comments:</p>
<p>Your essay adequately supported general statements with specific reasons, examples, and details. Your essay maintained focus on the specific issue in the prompt.</p>
<p>Sounds like I did what they asked me to. Why 8/12?</p>
<p>the writing is really frustrating. i've had the exact same thing happen to me like 3 times.</p>
<p>I got the same comment on mine. 9/12. Surprisingly, I did better than I thought I would in every other area, and worse in the one area I thought I would do well in (writing).</p>
<p>I'm still retaking it. :]</p>
<p>The responses are canned. I got the same when I took it back in October and received an 8/12. I'm fairly sure that the response is automatically generated based on your score.</p>
<p>The rubrics that they use to score essays often have escalating language. So when they wrote "adequately supported general statements..." my teacher instinct kicked in. AHA, there's probably an even higher level of wording on their marking rubric somewhere, that might have words that sound more extremely praising than "adequately." </p>
<p>There might also be other sentences of praise on the rubric that didn't appear when they remarked upno your essay. I'm just making these up, but things like: "Your essay demonstrated critical insight by making relationships among several related issues." or "Made meaningful observations" or "engaged in critical thinking" "made creative connections.."</p>
<p>This "canned phrasing" stuff starts in grade school. THey give us phrases to write about kids so it ALL sounds positive, but once you start comparing to the other kids' report cards, you realize that while you were proud b/c it said, "Is making gradual steady progress" the next kid has "shows significant progress" or "masters new concepts with ease"</p>
<p>You have to hear some of the phrases that kids with higher marks got.
Can anyone share those?</p>
<p>Unless there's actually a published grading rubric in one of those practice books. I saw one for the SAT-I Writing essay, in a chart, that explained what a 1-6 essay was,using little teacher phrases.</p>
<p>Does anyone have other comments or phrases from the scorers that would give insight into what makes a higher score?</p>
<p>I got a 9, i consider myself a decent writer, but. It says </p>
<p>"general statements in your essay were well supported with specific reasons, examples, and details. Some varied sentence structures and precise word choice added clarity and interest to your writing"</p>
<p>From an 11 essay: General statements in your essay were well supported with specific reasons, examples, and details. Some varied sentence structures and precise word choice added clarity and interest to your writing.</p>
<p>It sounds like they're grading like a b**** on this essay. They're way too critical.</p>
<p>don't they always lol :)</p>