<p>No, leaving a whole section blank is considered tantamount to requesting a cancellation of scores affirmatively, and the College Board says this in materials students receive before taking the test.</p>
<p>I know they don't want to lengthen it, but would FIVE more minutes to plan kill anyone? I mean you basically have to start writing immediately and that annoys me. On some IB exams there's five minutes where you can't do anything but read the documents/questions and think. Then you can start writing. It's not really that big of a problem for me but for some people it really helps them to have five no pressure minutes to consider what they're doing. I mean when in the real world do you see a prompt and then have to start writing about it 30 seconds later? </p>
<p>Also my other issue with the SAT is that the breaks are so short. I know they are trying to make it so people can't cheat, but I feel they could give a little more break time, even if you had to stay in the classroom during the break. Also the format of switching back and forth between sections is annoying. Why can't all the math sections be grouped together with breaks in between? Does it really help anyone to be switching back and forth? Is there a reason for that? I don't even know, maybe there is.</p>
<p>It DOES help to switch back and forth between sections of different types. There is a large body of research showing that mental fatigue is subject-specific, so if your French homework has you feeling like you are hitting the wall, switch to your math homework. Because of the experimental sections on the SAT I, it is possible to get the same subject three times in a row, but the mixture of different subjects on the same test morning should actually make the test LESS grueling, not more. (That is, if you are prepared for each subject, that shouldn't be too grueling, but if you aren't prepared for any SAT I subject, how prepared are you for a selective college?)</p>
<p>The breaks definitely are too short. the ACT has a ten minute break, which makes a big difference.</p>
<p>tokenadult: thanks for posting this - "It DOES help to switch back and forth between sections of different types. There is a large body of research showing that mental fatigue is subject-specific, so if your French homework has you feeling like you are hitting the wall, switch to your math homework." This is an extremely important point and good advice (I continually remind my kids to switch subjects to stave off mental fatigue) that certainly does apply to how the SAT reasoning test is administered.</p>
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I don't really understand why it's an issue that SAT writing is expected to be formulaic. Most writing that people do IS formulaic. There's a formula for a business letter, another one for a thank you note, and a third for a complaint. Not to mention term papers, exam essays, and so on.
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<p>Dmd, I disagree. I teach college freshman English, and one of our biggest challenges is to break the habit of the five paragraph, three example essay. No one teaching college classes wants to see formulaic writing.</p>
<p>I'm not sure that there is anything in the SAT scoring rubrics that requires (or even suggests) the five-paragraph, three-example form. I'm more concerned, as someone who has taught writing betimes, that there seems to be an empirical scoring bias against writing in the first person, which would zot a lot of renowned professional essay writers. That's probably not in the rubrics either, but it may be in the habits of the graders.</p>
<p>I like the fact that the ACT just has four sections, one for each subject area. The jumping around on the SAT just makes it feel extremely dragged out - I was counting the sections till the end.</p>
<p>tokenadult,
I suspect you are correct about a possible empirical scoring bias in favor of conventional writing paradigms. The merits of the five paragraph, three example format for the essay has gained ground, no doubt, because this standard format lends itself both to the 25 minute time constraint and the pragmatic reality that readers are spending a mere few minutes to judge if the essay comes across as "well-organized". </p>
<p>The following article from The Atlantic, March, 2004 pokes a few well-placed jabs at the SAT writing scoring rubric:</p>
<p>"Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore? : How several well-known writers (and the Unabomber) would fare on the new SAT".</p>
<p>katonahmom</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. On another thread I'm asking why, if the SAT I essay is basically the SAT II essay moved to another time slot, are so many colleges acting like they won't look at it, like it's some bold experiment that may not pan out? If this is what the UCs wanted, why didn't they just require their applicants to take SAT II writing?</p>
<p>Garland, while I understand that you don't want to see writing that uses cliches or tired metaphors, I would still argue that most college professors--especially in the sciences and in engineering--expect papers to follow a standard format. That standard format, whether it's a lab report or a term paper, is a formula for the writing. (Note: I have worked as a technical writer for thirty years.) Perhaps we're are simply using "formulaic writing" in two different ways.</p>
<p>However, I certainly agree that within that formula it is possible to write more or less well. My daughter's term papers are a pleasure to read, filled as they are with flowing sentences (she's a literature major); my son's papers use many tables and equations (engineering major) and I struggle through them. Nonetheless, they both use a similar formula that could roughly be described as "tell them what you're going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them; tell them what questions remain."</p>