<p>I recently attended a parents college night at my son's high school and quite a number of parents, guest college speakers, and students voiced their outrage over the new writing section of the SAT. Our children have spent a significant amount of time preparing for this section and many parents have spent additional sums of money for writing section test prep, and guess what? Colleges aren't even looking at it because they feel the grading is subjective. It seems that the only organizations benefiting from the writing section are the test prep. companies which have reportedly earned over $250 million of additional fees. One speaker noted that the College Board is affiliated with some of these test prep. companies and also benefited financially from this writing section. Yet, why was this allowed to happen? Don't our children have enough to worry about given the tedious and time consuming college test prep and application process. Why were they made to prepare for a writing section test that apparently was doomed to failure? Please go on the college board web site section where you can contact them by email or phone and express your outrage! <a href="http://www.collegeboard.com%5B/url%5D">www.collegeboard.com</a></p>
<p>Gripe at the University of California system. They're the ones that instigated the change.</p>
<p>The reason that a lot of colleges are NOT using the writing section of the new SAT is that not enough students have taken it yet to create normative data (%iles). To be honest, I think it is good that they have made this decision. It would be ridiculous to use a test in its first year...without any normative or reference data...as a criteria for admittance to college. In the future, once this new subtest has a "track record" it MIGHT become useful (notice, I say....might). My only gripe with the writing section is that it made an "already too long" test even longer. And I'm not sure what the colleges hope to learn by having students do a rough draft...which is basically what this is...no chance to revise or edit...just a cold writing. In my HUMBLE opinion, if colleges feel they need a writing sample, they should do what many colleges do already...administer one during student orientation and figure out which writing class the student should be placed in at the college. This is what is done at DS's university...almost EVERYONE (and I mean that...less than 1% of the students are exempt) are required to take a freshman writing course. What is wrong with that?? And I agree....thank the UC system. Without that writing section, the UCs were planning to ditch the SAT entirely (as I understand it), and this would have been a financial disaster for the College Board.</p>
<p>I know, I agree with you.</p>
<p>I agree with ellenF. The UC system forced it. it's subjective and arbitrary, as the writing SAT 2 always was.</p>
<p>litehouse:</p>
<p>you can always express your 'outrage' with your pocketbook. Take the ACT instead. :)</p>
<p>It's not any worse than the old SAT-II Writing. It's subjective, but, hey, it's not been worked on by tutors, parents, teachers, friends, neighbors and even CC posters. It's the students' own unadorned prose. Once they are in college, even if they do atrociously on the writing placement test, there's no way of getting rid of students who can't string two sentences together. Yet they will write essays in many many courses, in as much time as they are given on the SAT. And those essays will be graded by profs who are as subjective as anyone else.</p>
<p>Aside from the subjectivity of the grading, the essay may drain energy and negatively affect performance on other sections arbitrarily. The test was already too long. The SAT is looking increasingly like an endurance test, which I do not think it was designed to be.</p>
<p>DD came home from the Oct 8 administration of the SAT (her second taking) and said that the writing prompt on the test this time was quite poor. A number of her classmates stated the same. These are honors students with decent writing skills. She says she cannot talk about the topic (where they sworn to secrecy??) but that whoever chose it didn't do a very good job. I will say that I am curious about this topic and wonder whether students from other areas of the country had the same view of the Oct 8 prompt.</p>
<p>Yaledad, You are right. The hs that my S attends showed a significant drop in scores btn. the old and the new sat. Average CR dropped about 20 points and ave. math dropped about 10 points.</p>
<p>The SAT is not perfect, but most of the rumors are simply unfounded. </p>
<p>I am not a great fan of the new SAT; I also find the 25 minutes essay to be an exercise in futility. However, I do not agree with most comments regarding the grading "scandal" and the so-called difficulty of the test. Any student who plan to attend a competitive school should be able to write an essay that satisfies most graders. All scores may not be perfect 12, but they should not stray too far from the 9-12 norm. Coupled with rather easy Writing sections, most students should be able to earn a very competitive score for Writing. </p>
<p>As far as the October SAT prompts being poorly written or simply poor, I'll let you judge for yourself. Obviously, it is possible that the fourth prompt was indeed the "bad" one. I only have 3 out of 4 prompts. </p>
<p>*Prompt 1 *
1. Success in life is largely a matter of luck. It has little correlation with merit, and in all fields of life there have always been people of great merit who did not succeed. </p>
<ol>
<li>As Colin Powell said, "There are no secrets to success. Don't waste time looking for them. Success is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."</li>
</ol>
<p>Assignment: Is success in life earned or do people succeed because they are lucky? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations. </p>
<p>*Prompt 2 *
1. Celebrities have the power to attract "communities" of like-minded followers; they provide an identity that people can connect to and call their own. Celebrities are trusted; they stand for certain ideas and values to which followers can express allegiance. </p>
<ol>
<li>Admiration for celebrities is often accompanied by contempt for "average" people. As we focus on the famous, other people become less important to us. The world becomes populated with a few "somebodies" and an excess of "near-nobodies."</li>
</ol>
<p>Assignment: Is society's admiration for famous people beneficial or harmful? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations. </p>
<p>*Prompt 3 *
This is a time for shallowness. Seriousness is so rare these days that we tend to make all kinds of allowances for those who only seem to possess it. In this way, shallow ideas are not recognized for what they are, and they are increasingly mistaken for deep thoughts.</p>
<p>Assignment: Do we live in a time when people do not engage in serious thinking? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<p>The writing test was added because so many kids nationwide cannot write. Also, so many kids have their parents write their school papers and college esays (or at least rewrite them) or have tutors, etc. Writing, for most people, is a greater predictor of success than whether or not they can do geometric proofs - a skill hardly needed later in life except in certain professions.
I do agree the test is too long and it would be fine if colleges had the old SAT and then REQUIRED the satII writing. Even though college may not count the score for the writing, they are given the actual essay to read, which they can do if the applicant's essays sound like they were written by a tutor or whatever and the college wants to make sure the student is literate.
One reason to have the test on the SATl is that nationwide, public universities do not demand SAT 2s. But they want to know the kids can write.
The ACT seems like a good option as it is just one test and eliminates the SAT2s which are a nightmare since so much depends on what the teacher teaches in class.</p>
<p>LOL!!!!! Assignment: Plan and write an essay that demonstrates a serious lack of thought!! Gotta love it!</p>
<p>"LOL!!!!! Assignment: Plan and write an essay that demonstrates a serious lack of thought!! Gotta love it!"</p>
<p>While demonstrating the "lack of thought" is not exactly the assignment, you have to admit that this ought to be one of the easiest assignments for a 17 year old teenager. Since the examples can come from real life, students only have to look in the world around them: their latest text messages, IM, or the magazines they read offer a limitless supply of good examples of shallowness.</p>
<p>"do agree the test is too long and it would be fine if colleges had the old SAT and then REQUIRED the satII writing. Even though college may not count the score for the writing, they are given the actual essay to read, which they can do if the applicant's essays sound like they were written by a tutor or whatever and the college wants to make sure the student is literate."</p>
<p>I would hope that the high school transcript will be able to illustrate the level of classes taken. Many states are now requiring high school exit testing as part of NCLB, I realize taht rigor is variable- but that is another indicator of academic acheivement, as are the essays submitted with applications.
as for the shallow prompt- this is from a hilarious movie I saw last night for thefirst time- highly recommended - shallowness is sometimes just is what is required- the trick is knowing when to recognize it.
[quote]
I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>United States college admissions tests are still EASY compared to the tests used in much of the rest of the world, and take less time as well.</p>
<p>perhaps that is why so many are coming to US to attend university?</p>
<p>Anyone know the scoring breakdown on the writing section? Seems like somewhere I read the actual essay was only 6 points? The rest of the test is grammar, punctuation, sentence diagramming, etc???</p>
<p>EK:
LOL!</p>
<p>No. They have to pass their own exams before being able to attend a US college. The "they" includes me. Baccalaureat, 1ere partie, 11th grade:
one week, all subjects, written and oral portions: French literature (oral and written), history (ditto), English (ditto), math,, biology, chemistry, physics, PE.<br>
Baccalaureat, 2eme partie, 12th grade: same song, second verse, PE.
Except for PE (:)) and math, you need to write essays for each component.
Flunk one part and you need to repeat the whole grade. Flunking means getting an average of less than 10/20 across the board.-- a far harder grade to obtain than a C. Receiving a Baccalaureat (you can't just take the first part and leave) entitles you to Advanced Standing in an American college.
A-levels in Britain are similarly exhausting.</p>
<p>Although schools are not necessarily looking at the essay section in terms of writing ability in itself, some colleges are comparing the content and writing style against the essays that students submit on their applications.</p>