By Mary Best
Opinion and Advisory Editor
My younger sister and I are experiencing our senior years together — hers in high school, mine at Bona’s. While the nerves that come with joining “the real world” surround my everyday activities, fighting the injustice of standardized testing surrounds hers.
The dreaded Scholastic Assessment Test, or SAT, is one seemingly undefeatable beast of a roadblock on the road to getting into a great college with a decent chance at a scholarship. Aside from the atrocious idea that all students, no matter what learning or testing style suits them best, have to suffer through it, the scoring is what really grinds my gears.
The SAT is composed of three sections: Critical Reading, Math and Writing. The possible perfect score is 2400. However, a student’s composite score on the test is weighed on a 1600-point scale, which ignores the writing score completely.
It’s been a while since I applied to schools, but there wasn’t a single university or college I looked at that required or even requested the submission of the three-pronged score. As a hater of standardized testing who shined in English over other subjects, I was worried I would miss out on my dream school or even a scholarship by ignoring the portion of that dreaded exam that exhibited my skills.
What I don’t understand is why the option to omit writing scores is even available. Granted, a college can still gain insight into a student’s writing ability through his or her college entrance essay, but then what’s the point of even having a writing section?
The SAT should not only keep its writing section, but it should always count. Critics might point out that counting writing could hurt students’ scores who might not be the best writers, but degrading those writing scores of a student who struggles with math is the same type of unfairness.
By carrying on year after year with both grading scales, students who don’t make writing a priority will continue to think improving writing skills isn’t important. After years of editing my peers, I can safely say no one comes in as a freshman ready to win a Pulitzer, myself included. How much do you want to bet that’s because they’re under the impression that clean, concise writing isn’t as important as knowing how to FOIL (first, outside, inside, last) and find the theme in a short story?
In February, the College Board announced it is planning to redesign the SAT, according to a Feb. 28 New York Timesstory.
“We will develop an assessment that mirrors the work that students will do in college so that they will practice the work they need to do to complete college,” David Coleman, president of the College Board, wrote. “An improved SAT will strongly focus on the core knowledge and skills that evidence shows are most important to prepare students for the rigors of college and career.”
Let’s hope and pray that those improvements include an equal focus on all skills not only to give a fair assessment of a student, but also to promote that writing is just as important as math or reading.
It’s bad enough that writing-based majors get grief for trying to join a supposedly dying industry. While I don’t believe the art of communication will ever disappear, the quality of it is sure to diminish if standardized testing carries on with their hypocrisy of looking down on writing.
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bestmk10@bonaventure.edu
