How much does handwriting affect SAT essay grade?

Test Preparation
1

<p>Here is the scenario:</p>

<p>An SAT essay that is a clear 5 essay (from 1-6) is written by a student with average handwriting: legible, but not super clean/typed looking.
This essay is compared to an exact replica of the 5 essay, the exact same content and everything, except that this replica has an extremely clean, almost typed look. </p>

<p>When an SAT grader looks at these two essays, will the scores differ by one point, due to the neatness of the second essay?
For example, if the first essay received a 5, what are the chances that the second essay receives a 6 just because it had super clean handwriting?</p>

2

<p>they’re professional graders, it doesn’t matter</p>

3

<p>Officially, it’s like jgraider says. They’re professional graders, handwriting quality is not one of the things being judged, so it has no effect.</p>

<p>Unofficially, essay grading is by its nature subjective. An essay where all the letters are beautiful and flowing will look better than an essay of chicken scratching, whether or not it’s officially used as a criterion.</p>

4

<p>They go through a pretty rigorous training process… so I wouldn’t worry about it much.</p>

5

<p>They say it doesn’t matter, but it’s hard to believe that an essay that is easier to read (because of decent handwriting) might not get a better score than one written in messy handwriting. </p>

<p>It would be interesting if it were possible to do a blind test…submit the same essay for scoring using a few versions written decently and a few versions written in messy writing.</p>

<p>BTW…there is some belief that just writing MORE words improves a score. Longer essays get better scores…</p>

<p>Also, it helps to have a few “go to” literary references that can be included with various prompts. My kids swear that they referenced Animal Farm in a few essays…and their scores ranged from 10-12.</p>

6

<p>Don’t have the source but I believe that they have done studies showing that scores can be impacted by handwriting. And if it is illegible, they’re not going to bother with and they’ll just give you a zero.</p>

7

<p>I should explain that I do think handwriting matters. It’s easier to get a point across when the reader doesn’t have to stop to look at words closely. Graders also only have a couple minutes to read them before theyneed to move on.</p>

8

<p>^I bet they decipher the handwriting and read it again so it’s not confusing. If they don’t, then it’s not grading, it’s deciphering…</p>

9

<p>Your essay is graded in about three minutes. They do not have the time to get someone to decipher it, type up a deciphered version, and then grade that.</p>

10

<p>my handwriting is terrible but essay graders apparently dont care that much</p>

<p>i usually get 10-11</p>