Interversity.Org

Here we have a student complaining about grade inflation! Or rather, test-score inflation. Still, it's noteworthy if not unique. I have mixed feelings about his conclusion, which is that the SAT essay test is too easy and need not be taken seriously. For him, perhaps that's so. For many students, writing the kind of essay Shar scoffs at may be the best they can manage, and for them, following his advice would be unwise indeed. On the other hand, I'm NAIVEly skeptical that the SAT essay test is a very useful measure of student writing ability, so I'm kind of sympathetic to Shar's scoffing.

Don't sweat the essay; it doesn't take much effort to end up just fine
By Daniel Shar
TEEN PAGE REPORTER
Monday, January 2, 2006

With a college-acceptance letter in hand, I think that it might be time to expose the essay portion of the SAT for what it is - a meaningless joke. To anyone yet to take the SAT who dreads the idea of writing a two-page essay in 25 minutes, read this and relax.

My friend David Orr and I took the new SAT the first time it was offered. We were faced with the same prompt as to whether or not the opinion of the majority is a poor guide based on examples from our reading, studies, experience or observations. Both of us argued against the opinion of the majority, only I did so like an articulate sixth-grader and he played the role of historian.

Somehow, we both received eight out of the possible 12 points, with scores of four from each reader. According to the College Board, "A score of four demonstrates adequate mastery, although it will have lapses in quality."

I wouldn't exactly say I demonstrated any kind of mastery.

more here

There are several issues implicit in Shar's report. One has to do with the accuracy of evaluation, especially at the kind of scale attempted by the College Board. Shar believes that neither of the two essays he wrote deserved the scores they received. I suppose we could write that off as a misunderstanding of the scoring criteria. Shar is presumably not privvy to the same information and training that College Board essay scorers are. But even if he were fully informed about the criteria being used, his point might remain, and his argument then might be more specifically with the criteria.

He concludes with a parody of a SAT essay prompt:

Here then, College Board, is a more appropriate prompt that you might wish to institute on a future test: "Air is believed by many to be more important to human survival than porridge. In an essay developed to whatever ability you feel like, write about whatever you want. Just put commas where you need them and periods at the end of every sentence. Use whatever you can think of to support your argument (should you choose to form one, totally up to you, dude). Do that for the full two pages and we guarantee you a decent score."

Heh. Cute. What I wonder, though, is what would happen if SAT scorers lived up to Shar's expectations? How many students would fail that aspect of the test? How many would have overall scores reduced enough to complicate or prevent their entrance into college? How would colleges respond? Would they pass up tuition money in defense of higher standards? Are evaluation standards connected to college capacity? If so, maybe the test is pretty much superfluous, a hoop that must be jumped not in order to screen for academic skills but for willingness and ability at hoop-jumping?

I wonder...