The addition of a third 800 point section will be the biggest change to the test -- which will bring the total possible score on the SAT to 2400 points, up from the current 1600. The new writing section will include multiple-choice questions about grammar and word usage as well as an essay. The essay topic will require students to take a position on a given issue and to support their arguments with examples. The essay will occupy about 25 minutes of the test and most likely will be the first task students have to tackle. The multiple-choice questions will test a student's ability to identify errors and make corrections to sentences...
C. William Heffner, a college counselor at Ithaca High School, said the new test "could be a benefit to students. The SATs are more accurately reflecting what colleges need to know, what high schools are teaching." He explained that Ithaca High School does not offer any standardized test preparation as part of its curriculum but he claims that the school has a challenging curriculum, which prepares students well for exams like the SAT.
Heffner believes the addition of the writing section may scare away students who do not need a writing test for college admissions. "Students might look more favorably on the ACT," he said, referring to another standardized test that is popular outside of the Northeast.
"Writing an essay scares people," he said, adding that most students probably would prefer a multiple-choice format.
If students who consider themselves to be college material are scared of writing essays under a time limit, well, whose fault is that? Here's a related article from the Technician Online that does not support the use of the SAT, but still urges NC schools to develop their own writing requirements in order to improve the quality of the incoming freshman class:
Critics have long charged that the SAT is riddled with problems. Some students do not test well or panic in a timed, standardized test situation, they argue. Others say that test-taking prep programs that are often expensive or inaccessible to all make the test biased against minorities or the lower class.
But until a better alternative comes along, N.C. State and other schools should not eliminate standardized requirements completely. Instead, they should reexamine their emphasis and explore adding their own writing component...
Instead of placing high emphasis on the SAT writing test, NCSU should consider requiring its own writing requirement as a simple evaluation of writing ability and as an opportunity for students to share part of their lives that is not evident or clear from a simple transcript.
In other words, even if schools do not agree with the timed, standardized writing assessments on the new SAT, it would be foolish to leave out any requirement of writing skill assessment, no matter how "scary" folks find it to be.
Update: And here's yet another article on the difference between the old SAT and the new, which - oddly enough - claims that "some think too much is being made of the SAT changes." GMToday obviously doesn't believe that, or they wouldn't have printed this.
Posted by kswygert at November 17, 2003 12:02 PM