SAT and GRE exams are basic application components for admission into many academic institutions. The College Board states that the SAT measures critical thinking skills that are needed for academic success in college. In the New York Times article, SAT Essay Test Rewards Length and Ignores Errors , Dr. Perelman of MIT asserts that teaching to the SAT actually encourages bad writing. He plotted essay length vs essay score on a graph and demonstrated that there is a very strong correlation between the two, meaning that students who simply write more are likely to perform better on the SAT writing section. He found that if you scored based on length without even reading the essay, you would match the College Board essay score 90% of the time. He also found that the College Board gives scorers the following guidance: “Writers may make errors in facts or information that do not affect the quality of their essays.” Fact checking, research, and concise writing are all skills needed for academic success
Multiple choice tests have no relation to practical problem solving skills. Life does not generally hand you an A,B,C,D,E to choose from… especially not in algebra, statistics, geometry, reading comprehension, grammar or vocabulary. Multiple choice is something you face with a vending machine, or when deciding to see a movie. Furthermore, 25 minute essays have no relation to the process of craft, research, and revision that are actually necessary in composing a persuasive essay.
Some measures that are sometimes used by educators for scoring students, such as a bell curve, unfairly penalize or rewards students when a high percentage perform either above average or below average. If an entire class fails a test, and the instructor plots the class along a bell curve, the final grades do not demonstrate that none of the students were prepared for the exam. If the entire class gets a 100% on a test, a bell curve does not demonstrate the hard work that the students and teacher put in to achieve such success, or alternatively, that the educator and the test did not sufficiently challenge the students.
Assessments that offer such skewed visions of “thinking skills” fool admissions counselors and students, placing them in institutions that might not be the best fit. The resources that schools use to prepare students for tests could be put to better use. The skills that the students learn to apply specifically to such standardized measures are not applicable elsewhere. Fortunately, some instructors, like my high school math teacher, are savvy to this, and teach skills that are only to be used as SAT strategies.
Tags: College Board, education, Educational Testing Service, ETS, GRE, human intelligence, measurement, MIT, Perelman, SAT, testing
