<p>Can you explain how on earth it just takes only 30sec for your essay to be graded?
It can't be a person grading, no way! But then, if it's not a person, how can a computer understand coherence or flow of ideas?</p>
<p>I had the same question with the ACT online course essay!</p>
<p>It’s a computer. It’s supposed to score about the same way a real person would score. What this means is that it’s pretty good at judging standard-format essays, but if you do anything a little more creative, then it becomes less accurate.</p>
<p>The actual essay is scored, for the time being anyway, by two real people.</p>
<p>Interestingly, some of the other standardized tests are officially graded by one reader and a computer, and if the two grades are off by more than a point, a second human grader takes a look.</p>
<p>Here, for example, is how the GMAT essay is scored (there has been some talk of doing the same with the SAT, but I don’t know what the current status of the discussion is):</p>
<p>How AWA Is Scored</p>
<p>Each of your essays in the AWA section will be given two independent ratings, one of which may be performed by an automated essay-scoring engine. The automated essay-scoring engine is an electronic system that evaluates more than 50 structural and linguistic features, including organization of ideas, syntactic variety, and topical analysis.</p>
<p>If the two ratings differ by more than one point, another evaluation by an expert reader is required to resolve the discrepancy and determine the final score.</p>
<p>Enlightening! Thank you.</p>