<p>Anecdote about the SAT writing test: D #1 was in the first class that had to take the new SAT. Her first writing score was in the 400's; I don't remember her essay score but it was very low. She is a very strong writer, but that means she goes through multiple revisions and her class papers are well researched, well crafted, and well reasoned. Her second SAT was even lower than her first so we enrolled her in a Kaplan class, which she hated. Her practice tests were all lousy too--towards the end of the class she was expressing frustration that she worked so hard on her essays; she knew they were good--what was the problem? We started picking apart her approach; it turned out that she was using techniques she'd learned in her AP English class and was pushing beyond the 5 paragraph box. We actually told her to go back to the essay structure she'd learned in EIGHTH GRADE--simple, formulaic five paragraph essay. Don't try anything sophisticated--dumb it down we told her. She was skeptical. She took the SAT a third time and did an 8th grade level 5 paragraph essay. The result was a SAT writing score just over 700.</p>
<p>I agree with the MIT guy--the test is a joke. They SHOULD test vocabulary and grammar--kids who are fluent with both are more likely to be decent writers--but there's no way you can assess college level writing skills in a crap environment like the SAT test. It might be possible to assign a topic ahead of time and conduct it like an essay final exam, but you'd have to give the kids the same amount of time they'd get to take an essay final in a college class--over an hour--and that means you'd need to break the SAT apart or it would be too long and exhausting.</p>