<p>is the essay copy that you can look at on collegeboard the same image that the graders see?</p>
<p>im looking at mine and..well theres stray marks everywhere and i can barely read parts of it becuz of them. like randomly there will be lines and dots all over the page. is that what everyone else's looks like?</p>
<p>im not trying to complain about my grade or anything im ok with that..its just wierd that i can barely read my own essay.</p>
<p>yeah, my essay's full of static. i wouldn't be surprised if that's what the graders saw, too. just provides more ammo for those saying length is the predominant factor in sat essay grading.</p>
<p>There was one part on my essay where I erased/smeared a lot and had to fit like 3 words in a very small space... it looks like a big blob of random crap. And you can't tell what it is from context either... haha poor graders.</p>
<p>omg really? I just read my Oct essay and I couldn't identify 2 words that I wrote..wow. what kind of scanner in the world are they using?? or did they set them to perform speed over quality?</p>
<p>Their scanners are particularly bad. In october the proctor said you're not allowed to use mechanical pencil on the essay anymore because aparently it wasn't scanning right, which made sense considering how strange my old essay looked (it had something akin to the "outer glow" effect from photoshop).</p>
<p>If you go to the "print your essay" thing, the quality is (not necessarily significantly) better.... A bunch of things that were completely illegible on the small copy were somewhat distinguishable in the printable copy. I'd imagine that's the one that the readers read...</p>
<p>I used mechanical pencils last time( before they restricted it), it looks pretty nice and clear..don't know, i think they do read it from the scanning</p>
<p>I really don't understand why we aren't allowed to use mechanical pencils for the SAT. After all, it is just a normal pencil but with pieces of refillable lead. Meh.. I used a normal pencil for my November SAT even though I hate normal pencils with a passion :P</p>