by David Ferguson
High school students around the country are not ready to move on to college. One in five college freshmen in the U.S. have to take a remedial class, and even more concerning is just 26 percent of college instructors believe that students are well-prepared. One of the biggest concerns is writing. And while the standardized testing system is not the entire problem, it is a contributor.
Every year thousands of teenagers, armed with their calculators and No. 2 pencils, flock to schools around the country on Saturday mornings to take the SAT. And as part of the nearly 4 hours of testing they must write a 25-minute, prompt-based essay. But the essay has a fatal flaw: students are tested on a specific type of writing, not the type of writing students will be doing in college and beyond, but the type of writing that is only found on standardized tests.
The SAT has been a valuable predictor of college readiness for the last 30 years and beyond, and it has proven to be a useful tool in helping students earn recognition and scholarships from all types of colleges and universities. SAT scores have a correlation to freshman grades, but with that said the SAT does not measure a variety of necessary college skills, ranging from motivation to work ethic. Essentially the SAT is a straight-forward intelligence test. With that said, the SAT works pretty well. A study from 2012 in the journal Psychological Science found that the “predictive value of the SAT is strong, especially when used in conjunction with high school grades.” And it’s the SAT that in some cases can be the difference between acceptance and the dreaded denial. Collegeboard.org lists standardized test scores, among academic GPA and “rigor of secondary school record,” as “very important” in the admission process. This puts standardized test scores’ importance above the importance of letters of recommendation, the college essay, and extracurricular activities. And this is where the problem stems from. Students fighting to earn their spots at colleges and universities spend countless hours studying and preparing for standardized tests, and in the case of the SAT essay, which was added in 2005, students are being pressured by their parents, teachers and themselves to learn a style of writing that they will never use in the future.
To earn a perfect score on the essay a student must demonstrate “a clear and consistent mastery” of writing, with “a few minor errors.” In short, the essay is graded more on the writing than the content. This is not to say an essay can be completely off topic. What I am saying is that the essay doesn’t have to be accurate or truthful. Students can use “personal experience” in order to further an argument, which really means students can come up with any experience or story to serve as proof, no matter if it’s true or not. In most cases it takes more time to remember a true event than it does to make one up. Furthermore, historical evidence is not graded on accuracy either. It makes no difference if a student claims the Hiroshima bombing happened in World War I, rather than after World War II. The SAT key to writing a strong argument can be summed up in one phrase: fake it, until you make it.
Students preparing to write the SAT essay are preparing for a type of writing that will only help them on a standardized test. And lately there has been boom of SAT prep courses, SAT books, and personal tutors. Teaching to the test is beginning to happen in high school classes. An American Federation of Teachers study found students can spend 60 to more than 110 hours per year in test prep for standardized testing. That is 60 to 110 hours, or 8 to 15 complete school days, that is dedicated to preparing students for standardized tests, not for building skills that may prove to be more valuable in a student’s future.
One of the biggest problems with the essay section is time: testers are only given 25 minutes to craft an essay without scrap paper. In what real-world or college circumstances are people going to be asked to write a 25 minute argumentative essay? Never. Students are focusing on how to write quickly and not accurately; they are teaching themselves, in preparation for the SAT, to write without really thinking. In college students are asked to draft well-developed essays, meaning the students will have to take the time to plan and write. One of the key goals of college writing (according to the UMASS Amherst English syllabus) is to help students grow in their ability to “develop ideas through analysis and synthesis.” The SAT does not push for that same goal.
The SAT essay section needs to be revamped. This might mean making the essay section optional. Or this might mean the SAT moves toward a more analytical format. Students could be given a piece of writing and asked to develop an argument based on the provided text. Or this might mean giving students more time and at the very least giving students a piece of scrap paper. It is time to get students studying for college writing, not standardized test writing; it is time to get students developing thoughtful essays, not a five paragraph fraud.
Mr. Otlin • Dec 2, 2013 at 3:22 pm
Great piece, David. No doubt we need to have higher standards for students and you are correct to identify the College Board as having a tremendous influence over what our schools expect from our students.