<p>I always see people talking about how the SAT doesn't matter as much now - how it hasn't done as good a job at predicting career success, college success, and intelligence (disclaimer: I'm not one of THOSE people; I think intelligence isn't as important as people make it out to be, but the correlation is well-established) - ever since the advent of the Writing section. Even now, on many college websites, SAT scores are documented in terms of Critical Reading + Math, with Writing thrown in as a "well, if you care that much" option. Writing sections are pretty standard (no pun intended) in large-scale testing now, and I don't hear many complaints about it except with regards to the SAT.</p>
<p>Bump. 10char</p>
<p>Having taken the SAT many years ago I can tell you that the tests are very similar. Math being the closest in my opinion. No more analogies or antonyms in CR and I am sure there are other subtle differences. Many of the words that I studied out of Barrons over 20 years ago still show up frequently. The web has made SAT studying friendlier and more collaborative. It used to be a dark art back in the day with a lot fewer test materials. The writing component is a modified English Compostion SAT II that used to be a common requirement for college admissions. All in all I think the students nowadays are better test takers and brigter than their parents.</p>
<p>The reason is because it’s fairly new. The writing section was only introduced fairly recently, so college admissions officers don’t really have a clear picture of what a certain score on the writing portion will translate into in real life. The math and critical reading are well established, so they’re fairly accurate measures of college readiness. The writing is just too new, thats all.</p>
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<p>The writing section was intoduced in 2005, right? There should be a couple of classes who’ve graduated by now so I wonder how much data is “enough”? If they aren’t going to give credit for it, they should stop putting the applicants through it.</p>
<p>I have no clue. I think its a good indicator of grammar knowledge, which is very necessarily to know of an applicant because of how frequently slang is spoken.</p>
<p>1)Essay grades aren’t standardized, it depends on who reads it.</p>
<p>2)Your ability to identify grammar rules isn’t a measure of reasoning.</p>
<p>^I’d think the Writing section would be considered useful because of how important it is to communicate clearly and effectively. Maybe it will be after a few more classes graduate and correlations are drawn up between their Writing performance and success in college and careers.</p>
<p>The problem is that there’s no real reason to think that the writing section is correlated significantly with ability to communicate clearly and effectively. Some of the grammar rules they test actually impede clear and effective communication in every context but sickeningly formal writing, and the essay score is known to have much too good of a correlation with length.</p>
<p>^They impede clear and effective communication? Please explain. It seems to me that the worst that can be said of the writing style that standardized tests condone is that it’s a little formal and not “hip.”</p>