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Description: Writing
Date: February 27, 2012
Found at: www.sjpl.org |
This article discusses the current SAT writing process. Reading this article is an eye-opener, it discusses what SAT essay-graders are really looking for and mentions a few tips that may help future students taking the SAT. After speaking with SAT essay-graders Anne Ruggles Gere, a professor at the University of Michigan, discovered that essay graders, "go through a very regimented scoring process, and the goal of that process is to produce so many units of work in a very short period of time,” Basically, the whole grading process in rushed. Essay-Graders must only spend a maximum of three minutes grading an essay. Personally, I think this time should be expanded. It takes longer than three minutes to read and essay, evaluate it, and score it. Most essay-graders will just skim over the essay, instead of actually reading it.
It was also mentioned that, "the SAT have indicated that in scoring it really doesn't matter if you say that the War of 1812 occurred in 1817." I think that is just ridiculous. This, to me, shows that the SAT is just a joke. It is possible for someone who just rambled on an essay about inaccurate information to get a higher score than someone who put valid and meaningful information on theirs. I couldn't agree more with Perelman when he said, "What they are actually testing is the ability to B.S. on demand".
This article also mentioned some great tips that would be helpful in the near future. Les Perelman suggest that, “To do well on the essay, he says, the best approach is to just make stuff up.” Most students spend most of the time given to write essays just thinking about what to write. To avoid wasting time, it's best to just make things up. Perelman tells his students, “to always use quotations, because the exam readers love quotations” This is something that I didn't know before about SAT writing. Another great tip that was mentioned is to use big words. Considering that those who grade the SAT essays take no longer than three minutes scoring and only skim a text, I think that this is really helpful.
Article Link:
http://kellygallagher.org/resources/AoW%201314_8%20SAT%20Writing.pdf
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