Test Wars
Newsweek on
MSNBC.com - Education
Section
August 21, 2006
by Jay Mathews
For one brief moment, after years of fear and loathing, America seemed ready to make peace with the SAT. When the University of California several years ago threatened to treat the test like a bad batch of cafeteria food and tell applicants not to buy it, the College Board junked the bewildering analogy questions (warthogs are to pigs as politicians are to what?), created a writing section (including producing an essay), added tougher math questions and more reading analysis—and had everybody talking about the new-and-improved SAT...
...Still, the new SAT essay—25 minutes to fill a maximum of two pages—seems to have been quickly accepted by most of the country's leading universities. A College Board survey of 351 admissions deans found that 74 percent planned to use the new writing-section results in their admissions process. But that has not ended the grumbling about the new test's being longer and more draining than traffic school at the DMV. Noting that the letters SAT once stood for Scholastic Aptitude Tests but no longer officially stand for anything, Bethesda, Md., SAT tutor Ned Johnson suggests a new title: "Stupefying and Tiring." He's telling his young clients to get a good night's sleep for several days before the test so they'll be alert at the 7:45 a.m. start and to take high-energy snacks to eat during bathroom breaks....
August 21, 2006
by Jay Mathews
For one brief moment, after years of fear and loathing, America seemed ready to make peace with the SAT. When the University of California several years ago threatened to treat the test like a bad batch of cafeteria food and tell applicants not to buy it, the College Board junked the bewildering analogy questions (warthogs are to pigs as politicians are to what?), created a writing section (including producing an essay), added tougher math questions and more reading analysis—and had everybody talking about the new-and-improved SAT...
...Still, the new SAT essay—25 minutes to fill a maximum of two pages—seems to have been quickly accepted by most of the country's leading universities. A College Board survey of 351 admissions deans found that 74 percent planned to use the new writing-section results in their admissions process. But that has not ended the grumbling about the new test's being longer and more draining than traffic school at the DMV. Noting that the letters SAT once stood for Scholastic Aptitude Tests but no longer officially stand for anything, Bethesda, Md., SAT tutor Ned Johnson suggests a new title: "Stupefying and Tiring." He's telling his young clients to get a good night's sleep for several days before the test so they'll be alert at the 7:45 a.m. start and to take high-energy snacks to eat during bathroom breaks....
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