[Englecturers] Fwd: SAT II teaches bad writing

[englecturers at lists.ucr.edu]

SAT Essay Test Rewards Length and Ignores Errors

By MICHAEL WINERIP 

Published: May 4, 2005

AMBRIDGE, Mass.

INMarch, Les Perelman attended a national college writing conference andsat 
in on a panel on the new SAT writing test. Dr. Perelman is one ofthe directors 
of undergraduate writing at Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology. He did 
doctoral work on testing and develops writingassessments for entering M.I.T. 
freshmen. He fears that the new25-minute SAT essay test that started in March - and 
will be given forthe second time on Saturday - is actually teaching high 
school studentsterrible writing habits.

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 "Itappeared to me that regardless of what a student wrote, the longer 
theessay, the higher the score," Dr. Perelman said. A man on the panelfrom the 
College Board disagreed. "He told me I was jumping toconclusions," Dr. Perelman 
said. "Because M.I.T. is a place whereeverything is backed by data, I went to my 
hotel room, counted thewords in those essays and put them in an Excel 
spreadsheet on mylaptop."

In the next weeks, Dr. Perelman studied every gradedsample SAT essay that the 
College Board made public. He looked at the15 samples in the ScoreWrite book 
that the College Board distributed tohigh schools nationwide to prepare 
students for the new writingsection. He reviewed the 23 graded essays on the College 
Board Web sitemeant as a guide for students and the 16 writing "anchor" 
samples theCollege Board used to train graders to properly mark essays.

 Hewas stunned by how complete the correlation was between length andscore. 
"I have never found a quantifiable predictor in 25 years ofgrading that was 
anywhere near as strong as this one," he said. "If youjust graded them based on 
length without ever reading them, you'd beright over 90 percent of the time." 
The shortest essays, typically 100words, got the lowest grade of one. The 
longest, about 400 words, gotthe top grade of six. In between, there was virtually 
a direct matchbetween length and grade.

He was also struck by all the factualerrors in even the top essays. An essay 
on the Civil War, given aperfect six, describes the nation being changed 
forever by the "firingof two shots at Fort Sumter in late 1862." (Actually, it was 
in early1861, and, according to "Battle Cry of Freedom" by James M. 
McPherson,it was "33 hours of bombardment by 4,000 shot and shells.")

Dr.Perelman contacted the College Board and was surprised to learn that onthe 
new SAT essay, students are not penalized for incorrect facts. Theofficial 
guide for scorers explains: "Writers may make errors in factsor information that 
do not affect the quality of their essays. Forexample, a writer may state 
'The American Revolution began in 1842' or' "Anna Karenina," a play by the French 
author Joseph Conrad, was avery upbeat literary work.' " (Actually, that's 
1775; a novel by theRussian Leo Tolstoy; and poor Anna hurls herself under a 
train.) Nomatter. "You are scoring the writing, and not the correctness offacts." 


How to prepare for such an essay? "I would advisewriting as long as 
possible," said Dr. Perelman, "and include lots offacts, even if they're made up." 
This, of course, is not what heteaches his M.I.T. students. "It's exactly what we 
don't want to teachour kids," he said. 

 SAT graders are told to read an essay justonce and spend two to three 
minutes per essay, and Dr. Perelman is nowadept at rapid-fire SAT grading. This 
reporter held up a sample essayfar enough away so it could not be read, and he was 
still able to guessthe correct grade by its bulk and shape. "That's a 4," he 
said. "Itlooks like a 4."

A report released this week by the NationalCouncil of Teachers of English 
mirrors Dr. Perelman's criticism of thenew SAT essay. It cautions that a single, 
25-minute writing testignores the most basic lesson of writing - that good 
writing isrewriting. It warns that the SAT is pushing schools toward 
"formulaic"writing instruction.

This is a far cry from all the hoopla whenthe new SAT was announced two years 
ago. College Board officialsdescribed it as a tool that could transform 
American education, forcingschools to better teach writing. A "great social 
experiment," Timemagazine said.

Forwarded by Sandy Baringer
sbaringer at aol.com
 
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