Word: essayed
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...College Board wants schools to produce better writers, so the New SAT will require an essay. The board thinks grammar is important, so the new test will ask students to fix poorly deployed gerunds and such. To encourage earlier advanced-math instruction, the New SAT will go beyond basic algebra and geometry for the first time to include Algebra II class material (remember negative exponents--q(-3), for instance?). The board, a powerful group of 4,300 educational institutions--including most of America's leading universities--has undertaken an unprecedented effort to push local school districts to alter their curriculums...
Some educators also fear that SAT prep will move from helping students improve their vocabulary to teaching them how to scribble hasty compositions in 25 or 30 minutes (the College Board hasn't settled on an essay time limit). "I'd hate to see all our English teachers begin to teach a formulaic style of writing to prepare students for this particular test," says college adviser Alice Kleeman of Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton, Calif. "Adjustments might have to be made so that students can practice the type of essays expected on the SAT while reinforcing the idea that...
...other kinds of noise are now to be allowed. Take the writing section, which will be divided between multiple-choice questions on grammar and style, and an essay students must write on an assigned topic (see chart for an example). Historically, the SAT has had only multiple-choice items. As Lemann writes of the early rationale for the SAT, "Tests that require a student to write essays ... are highly susceptible to the subjective judgment of the grader and to the mood of the taker on the day of the test, so they have low reliability...
...measurement error with a small number of items. (Think about it this way: if you taste only one dish served by a chef, you can't judge him with as much precision as if you eat everything on the menu.) Even worse, each test will feature just one essay topic; if you retake the test and get a topic you really love, your score could shoot up--a clear example of low reliability...
Last week, Stephen B. Cranston ’06 found himself living a Justice essay question, when he arrived in the room of his new Math 21a tutor only to find his Lazy-Boy recliner, which had been stolen from Leverett House storage, adorning the common room. Cranston, however, quickly resolved the moral quandary over whether stealing back one’s own stolen stuff is in fact stealing when his tutor hopped into the Lazy-Boy and then proceeded to demonstrate its seven reclining positions for him. Cranston seized the moment when his tutor stepped away for a bathroom...