<p>I found this on wikipedia about the SAT essay. Are any of these true?</p>
<p>"Despite the College Board's claims that the SAT Essay is a nonbiased assessment of a student's writing ability, many different claims of bias have surfaced. The College Board strictly denies any forms of bias on all portions of the SAT Reasoning Exam.</p>
<p>1) Readers give higher points to those who write in cursive.
2) Writers who write about personal experiences are less likely to get higher scores.
3) Topics favor the higher social classes.[1] "</p>
<p>Also, what prompts are you guys using to practice with? I have a list of all the past SAT prompts but I don't know which ones to write about.</p>
<p>The first claim is just silly. The second claim is plausible and so is the third. But that is more likely due to a hidden uncontrollable bias from the readers than an intentional judgment from the collegeboard. Personal experiences can relate well to the reader and touch them, while in general, most things in life tend to favor the upper social classes.</p>
<p>Supposedly the cursive one is true because people who write in cursive are, on average, smarter than the pool of people who don't use cursive. If the reader recieved two identical papers, one in cursive and one not, they'd get the same grade, but, when you average all the essays, the ones in cursive are, as a whole, better than the ones not in cursive.</p>
<p>I've heard the same thing about the use of the 1st tense. People who only write in 3rd tense score higher, on average, than people who use the 1st, but this is because less smart people tend to use the 1st tense, while better writers normally use the 3rd.</p>
<p>Well 1 and 2 apply to me, I wrote in print and used personal experiences as much as I could (thought that was a good thing). Perfect structure, just couldn't finish my conclusion, got an 8.</p>
<p>My friend made up his personal evidence for his essay, used only two personal and got a 11. I used strictly literature and history (2 source, hamlet+Vietnam) and got a 12.</p>
<p>I used personal examples in both my ACT and SAT essays and wrote in cursive (kind of messy cursive, though =P)... 12s on both. It depends on what the personal experience is and how well you use it to support your thesis.</p>
<p>I think they’re mostly true because of the likelihood that one group writing in a particular style would be smarter than the other group. It is also likely that cursive writing is harder to read so the essay graders wouldn’t look as hard for grammar errors as they would with a clear print essay.</p>