So I just got my scores today and I aced every category except the essay. I got 99th percentile in the rest of the English stuff, but 5/8 in all three categories on the essay, and that five is the sum of two different scores from 1-4. The issue is that writing is, and always has been, my strong suit. I have won national awards on the strength of my non-fiction writing, and have gotten consistently high A’s in honors and AP English classes at school, but, more to the point, I have also read through my essay and can honestly say it is absolutely fine - it’s the kind of thing my AP Lang teacher gives me 8’s or 9’s for. Clearly, one of the graders consistently gave me 2’s or 1’s, and that is clearly inaccurate for my essay. Is there any way to make the CD reread the essay and re-evaluate it?
please note: I’m not alone in saying I don’t deserve this grade, my AP Lang teacher has read the essay and agrees with me.
Agreed! I get 7’s and 8’s on my AP Lang essays (and my teacher grades harder than the actual AP graders) but I ended up getting a 6/4/6 on the essay. I remember my AP Lang teacher telling us for the old SAT that the essay graders for the SAT are different in that they don’t want your writing to be too sophisticated, but I’m not sure if that applies to the new SAT.
I just don’t know how to improve my writing for when I take the SAT again in October. I felt so good about the essay and when I got my scores back I was shocked…
Definitely agree. I don’t pride myself on being a outstanding or prodigious writer, but I do consistently write good SAT essays(this was back in the old SAT). I had several teachers look at my work(nearly 50 essays), and the general feedback was that I could get 10s without breaking a sweat and maybe even 12s if the topic was something I cared about(also that getting anything lower than 10 was virtually impossible). So imagine my surprise when I got a 8. An 8!
CB is one of the worst evaluaters of linguistic ability, and its mode of analysis is flawed. Furthermore, they don’t offer explanation or reevaluation of your SAT scores. Don’t be too worried though. If you are a good solid writer, which you must be, then such cases are more likely to be the rare oddity than the norm. Taking the SAT again would most likely result in a much better score.