As some of you may know, the college board has restructured the SAT to include a writing sample. The new formula for scoring is 800 for Math, 800 for Critical Reading, which includes short and long reading passages with comprehension questions, and 800 for Writing. Now I am all for a writing assessment. I think we can learn a lot about a student's readiness for college by looking at a writing sample. Some critics say that some people don't write well under pressure, but that is being considered in the scoring. What bothers me is that only 30% of the 800 points from the Writing section comes from the actual writing. The other 70% comes from grammar multiple choice questions. In the student's report, they will receive one number for Writing. They will not know how they did on the essay and whether the points came from or were deducted from either the grammar or the writing sample. College admissions will have access to these essays. There are lots of controversial points about the new SAT format. I found a good link at http://www.npr.org/takingissue/20050309 ... e_sat.html
This NPR site gives three different opinions on the new SAT, all interesting. What do you guys think???

I can't believe that the SAT was actually reformatted! I thought those analogies were on there to frustrate students. My high school experience consisted of latin roots training from 9th through 12th grade in order to help with those rediculous analogies. I can't believe that the new format is even more confusing. How are students suppossed to know what areas to work on if the writing score is one lump sum? I think the SAT should assess student's overall knowledge, and it should be used as a tool for helping kids. I think that the SAT should have been revised, but I don't neccesarily agree with the ways that it has been changed. Emphasis should be placed on the items missed instead of the overall score.