<p>Is it me or did nobody ever write long intricate essays about how the "SAT II Writing" test was a [insert one of the many names the New SAT's Essay Section has received from critics]?</p>
<p>I mean, if anything, it should be even worse as you had to write the essay in 20 minutes.</p>
<p>The College Board has been gracious enough to grant us mere mortals an additional 300 seconds of pencil crunching.</p>
<p>Interesting point.....</p>
<p>Well...wasn't it one of the original SATII's? This new "Essay" into the SAT is a big deal. Plus, journalists are always looking for new stories anyway. </p>
<p>I had no problem on the essay, haha. I think I've been trained to write off the top of my head, because I finished March's essay with 5-8 minutes to spare and got an 11. :)</p>
<p>I hate to say this and at the risk of BLATANT stereotyping against my fellow countrymen, I have to say this:</p>
<p>This is a problem with the U.S. We just complain WAY too much.</p>
<p>The fact is that there's nothing special, fancy, evil, or unrealistic about the New SAT's essay section. All The College Board did was phase out a test that all the good students were going to take anyway and assimilate it into the test that all college-bound students take.</p>
<p>With this decision comes brutal rantage.</p>
<p>fabrizio, I thought the exact same thing. The SAT writing part really is not novel. Nothing about it is new. Many schools required it before. The only thing 'new' about the SAT is the removal of analogies and quantitative reasoning and a longer test. I found it enormously stupid when there were these huge headlines about the revolutionary new SAT, when most of the hype was just about adding two tests together. Are you referring to the editorial in the LA times, by les perelman?</p>
<p>S/he had some horrible suggestions to fix the writing exam, because it supposedly favors quantity over quality. They were:
Colleges should design the test (good suggestion).
"the test should consist of two substantial essays written over the course of a day "(bad, can you imagine spending a day writing 2 essays? I doubt anyone but authors can write for such a long sustained period of time).
"Third, rather than having isolated individuals grade the tests on the Web, testing agencies could use the Internet to create regional grading centers where college and high school faculty would evaluate the papers cooperatively in weekend scoring sessions. This would be more reliable than solitary grading" Horrible idea, because there would not be parity between each center, thus resulting in uncomparable grades. The whole point of the SAT is a platform on which to compare all students. Also, when multiple persons grade a paper cooperatively, one grader may dominate the others and unfairly sway their opinion.</p>
<p>Well now the curve is much worse so they should be talking about that. and before it was an sat2 which is not looked at as much and it messes the traditional 1600 which they knew and love. and besides with avergae kids getting 1500s is no wonder their angry that their 1450s wont sound good anymore.</p>
<p>The SAT II Writing curve was extremely generous. The curve for the new SAT Writing is so drastically different that the two scores cannot be compared (according to Collegeboard). Also, the SAT II Writing was optional before, like confidential said. I don't mind writing the essay either way, but the new SAT puts way too much of an emphasis on grammar in my opinion. Do a couple of debatable grammar mistakes really affect one's writing ability, to the extent of 50+ points? However, the class of '06 doesn't have to worry about it so much, because most colleges are reluctant to use the test immediately in admissions decisions.</p>
<p>Would a high score on the writing exam help you? I got a 790, and really dont want it to go to waste. I always seem to come a year before I should have. Had a horrible science teacher who I got a C from, who left that year, and now im in honors science.</p>
<p>I'm no expert, but the 790 should help if the schools you are applying to consider the writing score. If you are applying to UCs and some other publics, they consider the writing practically equivalent to other sections because they plug all your numbers into a formula to calculate your eligibility index. Other than a few large state universities, the writing score will matter little for Ivies+Stanford and won't matter at all for Caltech (it might raise a red flag if the writing is way off from critical reading and math scores), MIT, and Georgetown. Since a few mistakes here and there can cost so much, I think most colleges will use the test judiciously the first couple years until some reforms are made.</p>