SAT to drop Essay/Writing and Return to 1600 pt standard

Freda'sMom

10-Year Member
Joined
Mar 24, 2011
Messages
299
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...a9eee4-a46a-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html

A good idea to eliminate it, since most academies didn't know what to do with it and they ended up disregarding it anyway.

The SAT college admission test will no longer require a timed essay, will dwell less on fancy vocabulary and will return to the familiar 1600-point scoring scale in a major overhaul intended to open doors to higher education for students who are now shut out.

The second redesign of the SAT in this century — announced Wednesday and scheduled to go into effect when today’s high school freshmen take it in 2016 — aims to strip many of the tricks out of a test currently administered to more than 1.5 million students in every high school graduating class. It also comes with a College Board pledge to offer new test-preparation tutorials for free online, enabling students to bypass pricey SAT-prep classes that previously were available mostly to affluent families looking to give their children an edge.

Out, too, will be a much-reviled rule that deducts a quarter point for each wrong answer to multiple-choice questions, deterring random guesses. Also gone: The 2400-point scale begun nine years ago with the debut of the required essay. The essay will become optional.
 
The efficaciousness of the composition portion of said standardized test had never been adequately demonstrated to this author. One also wonders how many scorers lost their eyesight trying to read the chicken scratchings
 
The efficaciousness of the composition portion of said standardized test had never been adequately demonstrated to this author. One also wonders how many scorers lost their eyesight trying to read the chicken scratchings

I for one felt sorry for the scorers who had to read my DS's left handed chicken scratch.....
 
DS scored in the 99th percentile on his SAT essay yet none of the colleges he applied to considered the essay in their admissions process. He even got a certificate from the College Board along with a copy of the reviewers' glowing comments. (Nice little boost to the self esteem, but that's really all it was good for.) His school district begins one-on-one writing coaching starting in 5th grade and continuing through 8th with volunteer writing professionals coming into the middle school to sit with students, go over essays and offer constructive critique. It's a great program, and it pays off in increased confidence, better skills and advanced techniques once students begin the more rigorous research papers of high school.

He tells me that there are a lot of group projects now that he's in college that require a well-researched, well-documented report, and essays for every class he's been in, plus scholarship essays, thank you letters, student government proposals -- there's more writing than anything. And yet, he feels that the majority of freshmen he's in close contact with are having trouble with basic research papers, analytical writing and even persuasive essays. He thinks that if anything, the college board (and high schools) should be putting MORE emphasis on teaching students how to write, not less.
 
My sons were so mad about this ridiculous test! No students handwrite their essays any more; everything is on a keyboard!

So, they skipped the writing portion as a form of protest. A couple of the colleges to which they'd applied asked about it and several of the admissions folks actually commended them for their stance. The only one who didn't was from Flagship State U who actually bristled.

I'm glad to see it gone, and of course the cost of the exam should drop by one-third.
 
My sons were so mad about this ridiculous test! No students handwrite their essays any more; everything is on a keyboard!

So, they skipped the writing portion as a form of protest. A couple of the colleges to which they'd applied asked about it and several of the admissions folks actually commended them for their stance. The only one who didn't was from Flagship State U who actually bristled.

I'm glad to see it gone, and of course the cost of the exam should drop by one-third.

That sounds like a protest about the technology, not the content. Would your sons have protested the writing portion of the SAT if they had been allowed to type it into a computer?
 
Is left-handed chicken scratch worse than right-handed chicken scratch?

LOL I think so....or maybe it's left-handed-boy chicken scratch that is the worst.....I keep teasing him that he has to work on his signature (since kids barely learn cursive anymore) because it looks like an 8 year old signed the paper. :wink:
 
Last edited:
Shouldn't the cost go down MORE than a third?????

A machine can score the other two portions of the test. It seems like the biggest cost would have been the salaries of those grading the essays..

Who are we kidding? Was a price break even mentioned in the article???
 
OK. late to the party, but I am here....I have not looked up the official info yet, but with what testing date does all of this take effect? So glad all of my kids are done with the SAT, but sure am curious!
 
Oh good. I'm certain all the kids taking the test in 2015 will attack that writing section with gusto!!!! :rolleyes:
 

Not with the correct pen.

It took me a long time, but I'm quite happy with the lack of smudging I get from my current favorite pen.

Uni-Ball-Black-Jetstream-Premier-Roller-Ball-Retractable-Pigmented-Pen-P13723849.jpg
 
Interesting Washington Post article on the utility/ validity of the SAT as a predictor of college and post college success: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html?tid=up_next

The testing industry would have you believe this.

However, when you look at the players involved, we can see that this latest change is clearly to align the tests.

Today, the SAT's only chance for survival, says Lemann, is if it aligns itself with the common core standards that 45 states have adopted. Standards that David Coleman helped write before he became president of the College Board.

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/06/286646479/college-board-previews-sat-revisions

And of course, off in the distance is a coming standardized testing (CLA) for college seniors to measure them as well...

http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/09/30/a-student-says-no-to-standardized-testing/

The notion of "common core" is turning higher education into an assembly line for graduates who spend even more of their lives preparing for the test. I suspect that this testing will infiltrate those institutions that are insecure about their standing and spread upwards. Those institutions at the top can pooh-pooh it as long as their graduates can prove more successful than those tested.

Unfortunately, life's challenges are cannot be truly measured by any standardized test. Unfortunately, many families with up and coming college level kids succumb to the hype and forget that a university education is not about the test.
 
Back
Top