Post by Moses on Feb 12, 2005 11:28:22 GMT -5
Stay informed with Marylanders Against High Stakes Testing www.geocities.com/stophsa[/size]
<br>IT TAKES MORE THAN A NO. 2 PENCIL
New SATs Already Challenge Students While Inspiring Critics
Published in the Calvert Recorder, St. Marys Enterprise, and the Maryland Independent 2/11/05
By Mark Abromaitis
<br>The SATs are enough to scare any student. The test can shape a student’s college career, and therefore the rest of his life. But now there’s a new unknown. The company that administers the test, The College Board, has changed the test format. Starting in March, students will be taking a new test, and it’s not their father’s SAT. It’s not their big sister’s, either. The test itself has changed. The old style was eliminated in favor of the new.
<br>So what’s really different?
<br>Before a perfect score was 1600. Now it’s 2400. But the scoring is just one thing that the students will have to adjust to. There are radical differences between the old and new tests. Most notably, analogies have been eliminated and an essay section has been added. According to Great Mills High School guidance counselor John Re, the new SAT is an attempt to align the test with current curriculum and practices in high schools and colleges. The College Board says the writing/essay section requires a student to take a position on an issue and use examples to support their position. This, according to the College Board, is similar to the type of writing required on college tests. The essays will be graded by two “qualified readers” and scored on a scale of 1 to 6 by each. If the two readers’ scores differ by more than one point, a third reader will score the essay. The College Board says that the readers will be “experienced high school teachers and faculty members who primarily teach English, composition or language arts courses, or who teach in another subject that requires a substantial amount of reading.” Multiple-choice questions will still test the student’s ability to find sentence errors, improve sentences and paragraphs. By adding the third measure of skill – writing – the College Board says, it will help colleges make better admissions and placement decisions.
<br>Re said the math section will now be called the “Critical Reading” section and will still include short and long reading passages and sentence completion questions. However, an SAT mainstay, the analogy, has been eliminated. The test used to take three hours to complete. Now it will take almost four.
<br>A ‘necessary evil’
<br>Lois McDonald makes her living teaching students techniques and tips for success with the SAT at the Lyceum for Lifelong Learning in La Plata. She also offers classes at St. Mary’s Ryken and Great Mills High Schools. “I was never an institutional person,” she said for her career choice, “I guess I really wanted to beat the system.” And she said it’s possible for students to do just that. She offers short general classes and longer in-depth ones geared toward learning techniques to become a better SAT taker. She readily admits that because of her profession, she considers herself one of the most skeptical of the College Board, the company that issues the SAT tests.
<br>McDonald explained that the old SAT was designed like an IQ test but has since evolved. “It was a [upper-] crusty Ivy League test used to differentiate who should get in and what [financial aid] they should get,” she said. “In the 1950’s and 60’s it became the ‘must do’ for college acceptance. “It’s since started looking more like the ACT [American College Testing].” Her opinions of the new test are not glowing. “I’m not sure that it is really new,” she said. “When you’re old like me you see things. I have seen all of these tests before.” McDonald explained that the new test blends aspects of the SAT and the writing subject test into the general exam. She said most of the kids in her classes don’t need help learning the information, but with learning the style of the questions. “They say there’s nothing tricky about it, but there are a bunch of tricky things,” she said. She cited the wording of questions and distorted drawings as two examples. “They ask questions in a way most tests don’t. They give distorted drawings. They aren’t to scale so you can’t figure it out” from the illustrations. She said “I try to teach them how to analyze the answers and use them to their advantage.” McDonald says that the best way to improve a score is getting used to the format and practice. “I try to give them a lot of practice and allow them to get better as the class goes on,” she said. “The best thing you can do is practice, practice, practice.”
<br>McDonald said that she was offered a position with the College Board years ago but quickly turned it down. “I would rather be strung up,” she said, “than work for them.” McDonald said the SAT’s are a good idea in theory but often aren’t fair to minorities and poorer students. “If I had to say something good about the SAT, I guess for college administrators that need to look at thousands of applications, the standardization is a good thing,” she said. Re half-heartedly agreed, saying that friends of his in the admissions departments of colleges often have difficulty discerning course difficulty and school quality just through an application. He said if you give a group of admissions people the same applications, many times the group will have completely different ideas of who should be accepted, declined or put on a waiting list. “At least with the SAT it’s the same test” that admission departments are comparing, he said.
<br>‘If I get a good score, I go to a good college”
<br>Most of the time, the SAT is taken during the junior year and into the senior year. However, due to the new test style looming, many students upped that schedule just to avoid the new format. The class of 2006, the current juniors, is the first that can take the new test. But that’s where the choices end. The class of 2007 will only be able to take the new style of SAT. The last of the old tests was supposed to be given Jan. 22, but a snowstorm postponed that to a later date. “A lot tried to get in under the old one,” Re said. Some juniors from Great Mill High School found the SAT to be very stress-inducing simply because of what it represents – ultimately getting into college and being successful.
<br>Junior Rachel Alonzo will likely be taking both styles of test. She said that she was nervous about the SAT because she thought it would shape what type of college she would attend. “Well, colleges look at those scores,” she said. “I knew if I get a good score, I go to a good college,” Alonzo said she will still end up taking the test up to four times, despite her misery, to get the score she really wants. Her first two scores will be under the old format. The next two will be under the new. She said that she struggles with the English and reading section of the test. Duvar Briscoe, another junior who said he would likely be taking both the old and the new SAT said, “I knew I had to do well to get into a good school.” He said his frustrations were highest when he was dealing with the sentence completion portion of the test. “I just didn’t know what the words meant,” he said.
<br>Great Mills Vice Principal Douglas Diven said his school makes every attempt to help students like Briscoe and Alonzo by offering vocabulary words and an SAT prep “question of the day” in homeroom bulletins. Diven believes there is a simpler answer to SAT success, “Rigorous coursework works the best,” he said. “We encourage all of our students to work in honors or AP schedules.” Re said, “The more touch schedules they take, the more it helps out.” One junior said that he began to seriously think about the test at the end of his sophomore year. Jose Viray said, “I knew it meant college.” He had anxiety with the vocabulary portion of the test. “It’s tough knowing all those words, figuring our which one looks right.” Kurt Kebaugh said he went through great lengths to study for the SAT’s. He took a class, studied a book and practiced on CD-ROMs at home on a computer. “I knew you couldn’t lose your focus,” he said.
<br>IT TAKES MORE THAN A NO. 2 PENCIL
New SATs Already Challenge Students While Inspiring Critics
Published in the Calvert Recorder, St. Marys Enterprise, and the Maryland Independent 2/11/05
By Mark Abromaitis
<br>The SATs are enough to scare any student. The test can shape a student’s college career, and therefore the rest of his life. But now there’s a new unknown. The company that administers the test, The College Board, has changed the test format. Starting in March, students will be taking a new test, and it’s not their father’s SAT. It’s not their big sister’s, either. The test itself has changed. The old style was eliminated in favor of the new.
<br>So what’s really different?
<br>Before a perfect score was 1600. Now it’s 2400. But the scoring is just one thing that the students will have to adjust to. There are radical differences between the old and new tests. Most notably, analogies have been eliminated and an essay section has been added. According to Great Mills High School guidance counselor John Re, the new SAT is an attempt to align the test with current curriculum and practices in high schools and colleges. The College Board says the writing/essay section requires a student to take a position on an issue and use examples to support their position. This, according to the College Board, is similar to the type of writing required on college tests. The essays will be graded by two “qualified readers” and scored on a scale of 1 to 6 by each. If the two readers’ scores differ by more than one point, a third reader will score the essay. The College Board says that the readers will be “experienced high school teachers and faculty members who primarily teach English, composition or language arts courses, or who teach in another subject that requires a substantial amount of reading.” Multiple-choice questions will still test the student’s ability to find sentence errors, improve sentences and paragraphs. By adding the third measure of skill – writing – the College Board says, it will help colleges make better admissions and placement decisions.
<br>Re said the math section will now be called the “Critical Reading” section and will still include short and long reading passages and sentence completion questions. However, an SAT mainstay, the analogy, has been eliminated. The test used to take three hours to complete. Now it will take almost four.
<br>A ‘necessary evil’
<br>Lois McDonald makes her living teaching students techniques and tips for success with the SAT at the Lyceum for Lifelong Learning in La Plata. She also offers classes at St. Mary’s Ryken and Great Mills High Schools. “I was never an institutional person,” she said for her career choice, “I guess I really wanted to beat the system.” And she said it’s possible for students to do just that. She offers short general classes and longer in-depth ones geared toward learning techniques to become a better SAT taker. She readily admits that because of her profession, she considers herself one of the most skeptical of the College Board, the company that issues the SAT tests.
<br>McDonald explained that the old SAT was designed like an IQ test but has since evolved. “It was a [upper-] crusty Ivy League test used to differentiate who should get in and what [financial aid] they should get,” she said. “In the 1950’s and 60’s it became the ‘must do’ for college acceptance. “It’s since started looking more like the ACT [American College Testing].” Her opinions of the new test are not glowing. “I’m not sure that it is really new,” she said. “When you’re old like me you see things. I have seen all of these tests before.” McDonald explained that the new test blends aspects of the SAT and the writing subject test into the general exam. She said most of the kids in her classes don’t need help learning the information, but with learning the style of the questions. “They say there’s nothing tricky about it, but there are a bunch of tricky things,” she said. She cited the wording of questions and distorted drawings as two examples. “They ask questions in a way most tests don’t. They give distorted drawings. They aren’t to scale so you can’t figure it out” from the illustrations. She said “I try to teach them how to analyze the answers and use them to their advantage.” McDonald says that the best way to improve a score is getting used to the format and practice. “I try to give them a lot of practice and allow them to get better as the class goes on,” she said. “The best thing you can do is practice, practice, practice.”
<br>McDonald said that she was offered a position with the College Board years ago but quickly turned it down. “I would rather be strung up,” she said, “than work for them.” McDonald said the SAT’s are a good idea in theory but often aren’t fair to minorities and poorer students. “If I had to say something good about the SAT, I guess for college administrators that need to look at thousands of applications, the standardization is a good thing,” she said. Re half-heartedly agreed, saying that friends of his in the admissions departments of colleges often have difficulty discerning course difficulty and school quality just through an application. He said if you give a group of admissions people the same applications, many times the group will have completely different ideas of who should be accepted, declined or put on a waiting list. “At least with the SAT it’s the same test” that admission departments are comparing, he said.
<br>‘If I get a good score, I go to a good college”
<br>Most of the time, the SAT is taken during the junior year and into the senior year. However, due to the new test style looming, many students upped that schedule just to avoid the new format. The class of 2006, the current juniors, is the first that can take the new test. But that’s where the choices end. The class of 2007 will only be able to take the new style of SAT. The last of the old tests was supposed to be given Jan. 22, but a snowstorm postponed that to a later date. “A lot tried to get in under the old one,” Re said. Some juniors from Great Mill High School found the SAT to be very stress-inducing simply because of what it represents – ultimately getting into college and being successful.
<br>Junior Rachel Alonzo will likely be taking both styles of test. She said that she was nervous about the SAT because she thought it would shape what type of college she would attend. “Well, colleges look at those scores,” she said. “I knew if I get a good score, I go to a good college,” Alonzo said she will still end up taking the test up to four times, despite her misery, to get the score she really wants. Her first two scores will be under the old format. The next two will be under the new. She said that she struggles with the English and reading section of the test. Duvar Briscoe, another junior who said he would likely be taking both the old and the new SAT said, “I knew I had to do well to get into a good school.” He said his frustrations were highest when he was dealing with the sentence completion portion of the test. “I just didn’t know what the words meant,” he said.
<br>Great Mills Vice Principal Douglas Diven said his school makes every attempt to help students like Briscoe and Alonzo by offering vocabulary words and an SAT prep “question of the day” in homeroom bulletins. Diven believes there is a simpler answer to SAT success, “Rigorous coursework works the best,” he said. “We encourage all of our students to work in honors or AP schedules.” Re said, “The more touch schedules they take, the more it helps out.” One junior said that he began to seriously think about the test at the end of his sophomore year. Jose Viray said, “I knew it meant college.” He had anxiety with the vocabulary portion of the test. “It’s tough knowing all those words, figuring our which one looks right.” Kurt Kebaugh said he went through great lengths to study for the SAT’s. He took a class, studied a book and practiced on CD-ROMs at home on a computer. “I knew you couldn’t lose your focus,” he said.
