I think it is interesting that people want to change the way the SAT's are layed out, but i dont agree with the grading of the essays. I think that it is unfair to tell somebody that in order for them to get a good grade on an essay it needs to be "long winded and predicatable". Alot of the time when kids are in an english class the teacher will say "quality is better than quanity" and I fully belive that with writing it is better to be unique than to do someting that everydody else does.
Thinking back when I took the ACT junior year, on the eassay portion of the test when they said it had to be "enough supporting essays" i felt like my writng watered down my arguement. If I could have just written striaght to the point, but still written enough, my writing would have been much more sophisticated. Also, with standarized testing I think students feel pressure to write more than what their neighbor is writing, but the truth is, what one person writes in a paragraph, another can write even better in a sentence. So overall their focus on length is unfair, and they should be more focused on the content.

This article was interesting to read and shows how education is always changing. I never took the SAT, but I took the ACT, which had a writing portion. I also took the AP Literature test.For both of these tests, we were taught to write in a specific way giving concrete details with a thesis, topic, and concluding sentence. We had to use specific evidence to support our claims and use fluent language.

The article remarks that the people who earn a 6 out of 6 have earnest, long-winded and predictable essays. In my opinion, making the writer conform to certain ways of writing is restricting. Not everyone can write in this type of way but can still be considered excellent writers. In my view, standardized testing doesn’t really account for true talent in writing. There are so many types of genres to write in and only one type is used on these tests.

On the other hand, I can see why the tests would use this type of essay. Later in life, this is the writing most people are going to come in contact with, and it is important to be a decent writer. It is hard to suggest a medium for this problem but I do think something should be changed because it doesn’t separate the best writers from the others.

Shakespeare vs the SAT

Two years ago, I took both the SATs and ACTs, as well as took a prep course for the SAT. During the course, my friend and I goofed off the whole time, went to Starbucks during break, and laughed and laughed and laughed. We tried to make the teacher play a game once, "Stools", a game that our american lit/creative writing/AP lang teacher had our class play every Wednesday -- the guy whose had most influence on my writing to date.

The course didn't stress me out, and neither did the physical tests. I didn't take it seriously enough, though, as well as I handled most of my education up to now. I was a floater. I considered going to a concert the night before the ACT. I did not see the tests as something that could hinder myself, of course, only I can do that. I received my scores and immediately knew I could have done better. It doesn't effect my life whatsoever now. It never really did. It's just nice to know it's there.

And then it was senior year when I took AP Language & Composition. In the class we wrote all types of essays, my teacher chose themes for the different ones, we had "I believe", the fear paper, our soapbox speech (what we really had to say in that moment in our lives). Even more, we practiced rhetorical analysis weekly. It was hard to position myself into this course, especially being a lazy senior, added with being the floater that I was. And when I took the AP exam, I took it seriously, but I was safe. And this will get me to my point.

I was talking to friends in the course (although you're not supposed to - don't sue me College Board!) about the test, and one of them told me that he decided to write a satire for one of the prompts. It was brilliant, and I didn't even think of going there. I wanted to be safe. I could guarantee myself a passing grade, but not a perfect 9, but also not a 1. I was floating, still.

With this in mind, as I read the Atlantic article "Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore?", I immediately thought of what I felt when I took these tests junior and senior years of high school, but couldn't articulate about them. The essay portions were boring; you had to write an ordinary, lackluster essay to get an above-average score. In addition, Katzman, Lutz, and Olson screamed and begged, "do not write boring things!" with their really clever use of rhetoric. The article contained great satire (I mean, giving the Unabomber a 6 isn't ironic, right?) , and I could not stop nodding my head in agreement. I rarely took risks in high school that I should have, and try to do so as often as possible now.

So I am here to spread this: do not write boring things. It is the same with days in a life, do not do boring things. If not, are you really living?