SAT score trends (Comment)

News & Commentary

08/30/05 - The College Board reports that Math scores have increased while Verbal (now called Critical Reading) scores have remained flat over the last two decades.

Commentary

No News?
There was really no new news in this press release. Math scores have been rising steadily over the past decade, and they continued to do so this past year. Verbal (Critical Reading) scores, however, have remained relatively unchanged over the past decade, and true to form Verbal scores were virtually unchanged this past year.

Skepticism
It is odd that the SAT trumpeted the "improvement demonstrated in math" as due to more demanding math course work. While we agree that more demanding coursework should positively affect the the math score, couldn't there also be a host of other factors, like say, SAT test preparation. We would argue that the most dramatic change in the SAT experience is the surge in individual and class based preparation. It stands to reason that better preparation would lead to better scores, and since most SAT advisors and educators agree that the math subject area is easier to coach (relative to the Verbal subject area).

We are not proposing that preparation is the reason for the increase in math scores, but neither should it be dismissed out of hand as an irrelevant factor.

Finally, we are deeply skeptical of the claims of a "holistic" grading of the New SAT essay. We have seen, admittedly few, examples of inconsistently graded or evaluated essays, so we are skeptical of the comments provided by the College Board which tout the merits of the essay grading method.

Drive-Thru Essay Grading
We are well aware that essay graders have to read about 25 essays in an hour. That averages out to about 2 minutes per essay. Any method subjected to this kind of stress would be suspected of faltering. The current method offers no reason to believe that it has or will overcome the stresses mentioned above. Therefore, we take a far less optimistic approach and hope that the essay graders are, in fact, approaching the essay with suffiicent time and concentration to give each essay the attention it deserves.

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