Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (0)
Students have a long look at new SAT
This past Saturday, 300,000 students across the country took their first crack at the new Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), which is longer, more mathematically advanced and—its creators say—a better gauge of how students will perform in college.Walking out of Chantilly High School this past Saturday, many county students seemed overwhelmed by the three-hour-45-minute ordeal.
“I will never do that again,” said Chantilly High School junior Aaron Street. “It's an awful experience, and what's worse, the College Board actually makes you pay for it.”
The increased price of the exam--$41.50, up from $29.50—is just one result of the newly added writing segment that debuted Saturday. One of nine timed segments on the test, the essay portion gives students 25 minutes to write a critical response to a “philosophical” topic. The essays will be graded by teachers hired by the College Board.
Will Lacy, a junior from Flint Hill Preparatory School in Oakton, said he was asked to write an essay on whether “majority rule” is an effective way to govern.
“There wasn't much time to plan an outline for the essay, and it wasn't just a simple writing prompt either,” said 16-year-old Lacy. His mother, Kathy Lacy, said she was glad to see colleges looking for writing skills beyond the “personal essay” required for most applications. “I just hope colleges will use it to screen who's going to need more writing help their first year, rather than as a way of accepting or rejecting students,” she said.
Besides increasing the length of the SAT, the new writing section has added an additional 800 points to the original 1600, making the new perfect score 2400.
The writing section was not the only change on this year's test. What used to be the “verbal” section has been redubbed the “critical reading” section. Gone are the notorious analogies (“wallet is to money as ...”), replaced with more reading comprehension questions. Also, the math section's quantitative comparisons were cut and replaced with Algebra II-level questions.
For parents of the new SAT takers, there was not a lot they could do after paying for prep classes—besides offering sympathy.
Waiting for her daughter on Saturday, Chantilly parent Laurie VanBuskirk remembered her own SAT experience.
“It was nothing like this,” she said laughing. “When I took the SAT in 1977 it was more of a formality than anything. Many of the people in my school didn't even go to college so there was none of this angst and drama.”
Breeding better writers
So why did the makers of the test decide to place more pressure on the heads of today's high schoolers? According to the College Board, they were simply responding to requests from the 3,000 colleges and universities that use the SAT as an entrance tool. In a telephone interview Monday, the board's spokesperson, Caren Scoropanos, said postsecondary schools have complained about poor writing among college freshmen since the early 1990s.
“It's the hope of the college board that by making this writing section mandatory, they will send a strong message about the importance of writing to America's high schools,” Scoropanos said.
For students who do not excel at writing, Scoropanos said there is no need to panic. Many colleges have stated they will not use the essay as an admissions tool but rather as a way to determine what level writing courses students should be placed in freshman year.
Prep for success
According to Scoropanos, the best way to prepare for the SAT is to take a challenging course load, but that has not stopped record numbers of students from enrolling in special test prep classes this year.
Besides national companies like Kaplan and Sylvan's, dozens of private tutoring services have thrived in Fairfax County in the past decade.
The Fairfax Collegiate School in Annandale originally opened as a private middle school in 1993, offering SAT prep classes on the side. Though the school formally closed its doors in 2000, it has continued to run a prosperous test preparation business, according to business manager Jennifer Nossal.
In a telephone interview Monday, Nossal said the new essay section continues to worry many of her customers.
“It's a major concern,” Nossal said. “Some of our students may skip the classes on the math section, but they want to be here for the writing.”
Nossal said she thinks the test is becoming more of an achievement test than an aptitude test, measuring how well students have mastered specific skills taught in high school.
Regardless of what the test is trying to measure, Nossal said, many students seem to have taken a more passive approach to challenge the new SAT: procrastination.
“I've definitely noticed that fewer people are taking the test in March this year,” Nossal said. “Rather than being the first to take something new, I think a lot of people are deciding to put it off until May or June.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.