<p>Some data from article:
Only 238 received the new perfect 2400.
Top scorers comprised 131 boys, 107 girls, or 0.0017 percent of the almost 1.5 million college-bound seniors who took the test.
While the math and reading section each had more than 8,000 top scores, only 4,102 students were rated perfect on the writing test, the only part of the exam where girls outscored boys.</p>
<p>Loved the "insights" from the CB for future SAT writers: Longer essays are better than shorter ones. Write in cursive. Use the third person, not the first person.</p>
<p>I think it's disgusting that piddly school issues like using cursive rather than manuscript handwriting, or using the third person rather than first person narrative point of view, have such a visible scoring impact. (Do we want Winston Churchill to get a bad score in English essay writing?) And I see </p>
<p><a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1521184-2,00.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1521184-2,00.html</a> </p>
<p>that another reporter decries some perfect-scoring SAT essays as "are unbearably mechanical and clich</p>
<p>I enjoyed reading the excertps from top essays. I see that misspellings are no bar to perfect scores--though bad handwriting is a handicap. So Descartes had a posthumous sex change via an extra e in his given name. How postmodern!</p>
<p>0.017 percent, not 0.0017 percent.</p>
<p>Thanks for the correction. I misread the info and did not have the excuse the students had of a time constraint. :(</p>
<p>Haven't read the article yet; must do so. However, I recently looked into some ACT sample scored essays & was appalled to see how low their standards were. If there are parallel standards for SAT, I can see why many colleges disregard the writing section. </p>
<p>I may disagree with some as to importance of mechanics & spelling, but those were not the roots of my surprise, dismay. It was the content, concepts, maturity of expression, organization, and lack thereof that put me off.</p>
<p>An alternative to SAT essay reporting could be: "CB: don't just send the score, send the actual essay to us, the college."</p>
<p>Addendum to my own post:
That said, I agree with some posters on a previous thread regarding the "lower" SAT score results of the most recent published cycle. Those posters mentioned length of the exam (yes!) & suggested separate writing sitting. Could not agree more. I wonder also if there's a way to reduce the administrative complexity of this, and have the essay portion proctored at the student's own high school, possibly even on a school day (like, first period). For example, an In-Service day for teachers could begin with that or be preceded by that. No need then to find a separate site, have extra associated costs, etc. Just a thought.</p>
<p>I don't blame them man...it's that much harder to get a perfect score on the writing section because a human judge brings in too much variability. As opposed to the old deal with 5 simple choices which provided a potential way to receive a perfect score, provided the student get all the answers correct.</p>
<p>No humans = no subjectivity.</p>
<p>I don't think it's really possible to write a thoughtful, well-argued and well-written essay in 25 minutes. Heck, people have not exhausted the topic of memory in hundreds of books!</p>
<p>I hardly need more fuel to embark on another anti-writing test rant, so let me just harp on one tiny little point. I find it ridiculous that today's kids who are raised on computers and may not have written a paper with a pen or pencil in many years are required to write a timed essay in cursive! Why can't they sit down and bang out their essay on a keyboard? It would be much easier to read and score that way too.</p>
<p>marite, I anticipate that writing test testprep will evolve into students memorizing several versions of a well crafted, well argued and well written essay that they can adapt to fit the particular prompt of the day.</p>
<p>Njres:</p>
<p>I fear you're right!</p>
<p>Marite: Where did you find the excerpts from the essays? I didn't see them in the Time article, nor on the College Board website. I'd like to read them!</p>
<p>They were at the top of the article itself.</p>
<p>I found it...I was checking the wrong website. I went to the NY Times after I re-read your OP and there it was. :) Anyone know how to get a copy of the "20 Perfect Essays" the college board is sending out with the score reports? My son is college frosh, so we're through with SATs. :) Still, I'd like to read those essys.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I enjoyed reading the excertps from top essays. I see that misspellings are no bar to perfect scores--though bad handwriting is a handicap.
[/quote]
Indeed. Oldest son did exceptionally well. Unfortunately on the writing one reviewer gave him a perfect score while another dinged him a point. The essay was out of this world. How that kid came up with that stuff on the spur of the moment is simply beyond me because I never taught him anything like what he wrote. But I have to admit, the boy’s handwriting was atrocious. I mean, I could read it fine, but whew! I could write better with my eyes closed. The only thing I can come up with is that the one reviewer who dinged him was simply turned off by the sloppy handwriting. My kid just shook his head.</p>
<p>Marite, I agree that its difficult to craft a good essay in 25 minutes. However, I remember back in college having to fill many a blue book with 3, 4, 5 essays during a typical test (for humanities and social studies classes). Therefore, I think it is something that colleges have to look at. My s was thrown for a whammy the first couple times he took the writing test. Hes always been a very good writer, so it was discouraging. Finallly on his third try he scored an 11. He thinks the repeated attempts helped lose the jitters. Which goes back to what the article is saying about lower scores being due to fewer retakes.</p>
<p>epiphany says:
[quote]
An alternative to SAT essay reporting could be: "CB: don't just send the score, send the actual essay to us, the college."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>and if I'm not mistaken, the colleges can indeed receive the actual essay. It is scanned and electronically available to the student and the colleges.</p>
<p>Likely the big publics haven't time to look at the essays and deal only with scores. But the colleges can view the original and make their own judgment. I don't know how many take advantage of this, but they can.</p>
<p>To my mind, this makes the Writing section somewhat useful. Agreed, the time constraint rewards facile responses, not depth or creativity. And also agreed, a student bent on "winning" can memorize a few canned essays and quickly adapt to the given topic. It's certainly not perfect. But it is one more data point. It's an essay that was actually produced by the student, not by mom or an English teacher or admissions packager.</p>
<p>Doubleplay:</p>
<p>I am very much in favor of testing writing. But not in the way that the CB has chosen. The CB has chosen to overlook misspelling and other stylistic problems in favor of content. I argue that it is not possible to write thoughtfully on a topic as vague and as vast as memory in 25 minutes. There is a difference between the SAT writing and the essays students are expected to write in college. First, the time alloted for essays is usually more than 25 minutes per essay--more like 40 minutes. I do find that there is a big difference between 25 minutes and 40 minutes. Second, the range of topics is more or less known since the topics must relate to what has been covered in the class.
It appears that length is an advantage. The way the Writing section is scored brings out the worst in students: plunging headlong into the essay without giving much thought about argument, structure, much less spelling or syntax and not giving oneself time to look over what has been written.
The first excerpt looks promising, but the next two read like a lot of verbiage to me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
marite, I anticipate that writing test testprep will evolve into students memorizing several versions of a well crafted, well argued and well written essay that they can adapt to fit the particular prompt of the day.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This was in fact the strategy of a well-known prep company in the Northeast when the writing test was still a SAT-II. Students memorized a well crafted essay and took advantage of the fact that the adherence to the prompt was not ... that important. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Haven't read the article yet; must do so. However, I recently looked into some ACT sample scored essays & was appalled to see how low their standards were. If there are parallel standards for SAT, I can see why many colleges disregard the writing section.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The same can be said about the ACT in general. The standards are indeed lower, both in the content tested and in the overall integrity of the test. As I wrote before, I expect the ACT scores to climb much faster than historically as more SAT tester discover the loopholes offered by the ACT. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I think it's disgusting that piddly school issues like using cursive rather than manuscript handwriting, or using the third person rather than first person narrative point of view, have such a visible scoring impact.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It is a bit premature to conclude that students using cursive AUTOMATICALLY get better scores. This could very well be a mere issue of correlation and not causation. Students who have mastered how to write in cursive might very well have benefitted from a superior education in English, or at least in the mechanics of writing. And for the record, I find it 100% admissible to penalize students who do not make the effort to write in an intelligible fashion. In fact, we are making way too many excuses for this display of laziness and lack of consideration to the readers. While nobody expects to see calligraphy, a modicum of legibility is warranted. This is not very different from spelling, which I also believe should be part of the grading process. In my opinion, a handwritten test should be graded on all its components, and that should include spelling, presentation, correct argumentation, as well as ... the mechanics of writing itself.</p>