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The Battalion
Page 7 • Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Another high school test question
Would adding essays to the SAT make the test more accurate or he unnecessary?
LINDSYE FORSON
I t has been said that nothing in life is cer
tain except death and taxes. For college-
bound students in America, taking the
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or some form
of standardized test is also all but a certainty.
In the 2001 school year, more than 2.3 mil
lion students took the SAT. Because many
students have so much at stake, the controversy over changing the format of
the SAT is one of national concern.
A strong argument can be made that the SAT is the most important test
many students will ever take in their culmination of 13 years of education.
The SAT alone is often the determining factor in whether colleges will grant
or deny a student s acceptance, the amount of scholarship money one will be
awarded, and whether or not the student will be allowed to pursue the major
of their choice. Therefore, it is of extreme importance that the SAT be what
standardized tests are intended to be: unbiased tests scored according to
objective standards that allow students ot different ethnicity, socio-economic
conditions and educational background to compete on an equal playing
field.
The largest proposed change in the SAT is the addition of an essay that
must be written in response to a prompt. That may not sound like a very
large change, but for a multiple choice test that has remained virtually
unchanged since the 1940s, adding an essay question is equivalent to a for
mat overhaul. Critics of this change cite concerns about the imminent diffi
culty of humans rather than machines scoring approximately 2.3 million
handwritten essays without compromising its objectivity. As the argument
goes, any human grader is subject to error and cannot possibly be as impar
tial as a machine.
But the College Board already offers several standardized tests that uti
lize handwritten essays, such as SAT II writing test and various Advanced
Placement (AP) tests. According to the College Board, more than four mil
lion handwritten essays from AP tests were graded in 2001, compared to a
potential 2.3 million written essays from the SAT. Therefore, essay grading
of this magnitude is not only realistic, but is in fact already being done.
The College Board currently contracts Educational Testing Service to
score its various exams. ETS then hires roughly 10,000 teachers and profes
sors, who gather en masse in facilities such as gymnasiums to read and grade
each essay. In order to ensure impartiality of the grading process, each essay
is reviewed by at least two different graders. Most universities, Texas A&M
included, acknowledge the legitimacy of AP exams by accepting the results
of the test as college credit. If essay-format standardized tests are seriously
biased or untrustworthy, then colleges and universities across the country
have been duped into believing that the results of AP exams are valid.
In actuality, the current form of the SAT is potentially unfair and biased,
as evidenced by one’s ability to manipulate their test score. The Princeton
Review is a renowned SAT prep class. On their website, their score-improving
strategy is clearly advertised - beat the test. Instead of trying to re-learn 13
years worth of testable information in a few weeks, the Princeton Review
teaches its clients how to predict the answers to a multiple choice test. The
service promises they can teach anyone this strategy and that it works; any
one who takes their course is guaranteed to improve their SAT score by at
least 100 points. In fact, most students who take the Princeton Review class
improve their SAT score by 140 points, and 25 percent of those who take the
course improve their score by a whopping 256 points; out of a possible 1600
points, this improvement is extremely significant.
If everyone had the opportunity to take the Princeton Review or one of
the many other SAT preparatory courses, then the results of the SAT might
be more accurate. But the majority of American families simply cannot
afford to spend large sums of money on a review class, especially in the
wake of the impending costs of putting a child through college.
An essay test, on the other hand, produces results that are nearly impossi
ble to manipulate; the only way to succeed on this type of test is to genuinely
possess writing skills and abilities. In the words of Eva Baker, UCLA pro
fessor and co-director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation,
Standards, and Student Testing, “If there’s a writing test that helps kids get
into college, then schools are going to spend more time writing, which can’t
be a bad thing.”
Standardized tests such as the SAT are an enormous part of the applica
tion and acceptance process for colleges across the United States; the impor
tance of national equality in college entrance tests cannot be emphasized
enough. Granted that reformatting the SAT to include an essay question will
undoubtedly be accompanied by unprecedented challenges in grading, the
immense benefits that students and colleges will certainly reap from an
unbiased, accurate portrayal of what a student has actually learned before
entering college is worth whatever logistical headaches may ensue.
Lindsye Forson is a sophomore
journalism major.
FRANK CHANCE • THE BATTALION
ANDIBACA
I n an effort to test students on a broader
range of subjects, the College Board has
proposed to add an essay portion to the
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). However,
adding a new section to the SAT will cause
more harm than good to the more than one
million students who take the test annually.
The most significant reason why an
essay portion should not be added to the
SAT is grading accuracy. These hand-writ-
ten essays must be graded individually.
This becomes problematic because no two
graders think exactly alike and the scale
which they are grading on cannot clearly be
defined. Whereas one might think an indi
vidual essay is great, another might think it
is only mediocre.
Also, by adding an essay section, a long
test will get even longer. The SAT already
takes over three hours for students to com
plete. According to CNN, adding an essay
portion to the SAT will add at least 30 min
utes to the test time. The SAT, which can
secure or eliminate a student’s spot into
college, are moving further away from a
real depiction of a student’s skills and
towards a student’s worst nightmare.
Another reason the College Board
should not add an essay portion to the test
is because students can take other tests
specifically for writing. The College Board
also offers the SAT II writing exam.
Students who wish to pursue a degree
requiring writing can take this test along
with the SAT. With other tests to choose
from that emphasize writing, adding a writ
ing portion to the standard SAT is an
unnecessary change.
Another fault with adding an essay sec
tion is that according to CNN, adding a
new portion to the test will increase the
cost students must pay to take it. An essay
portion on the SAT will require more staff
to grade the exams, especially a costly staff
to grade the essay portion.
Supporters believe students will benefit
from adding the essay portion to the SAT.
CNN said females, as well as upper and mid
dle class students are likely to benefit the
most. If the College Board is trying to help
students’ chances, then the test should be
reconfigured to include many more subjects
than it does. The College Board also believes
that adding an essay portion will allow stu
dents a way to demonstrate their skills.
If a student’s skills come in the way of
an essay, they might do well, but realistical
ly, someone’s skills go far beyond an essay
question. If the SAT wants to see students’
abilities, then they should allow them the
freedom to perform any task. With an
added essay section, the SAT will not bene
fit those students who have talents other
than writing.
Before the College Board decides to add
any other sections to the existing SAT, they
should truly consider the consequences of
adding an essay portion to the SAT.
Andi Baca is a senior
journalism major.
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United States must help stop AIDS devastation
E very week in Africa, a
population the size of the
Texas A&M student body
dies of AIDS and an equal popu
lation becomes newly infected.
Unless the wealthier countries of
the world become more involved, the disease
could wipe out an entire generation ot people.
According to the National Institute ot
Health, 40 million people are affected with
AIDS worldwide, and 70 percent of them live
in Sub-Sahara Africa. Some countries have
been absolutely devastated. For example, over
one-third of the population of Botswana and
one-fifth of South Africans have the disease.
About three million people die every year
of HIV or AIDS, and due to a lack of preven
tion programs and medication, an equal
amount contract the illness. It is estimated
that by 2010, 40 million children will have
lost at least one parent, and 16 million will
have lost both.
Almost one million of the new infections
are children, and most of these cases result
from mother-to-child transmissions in the
womb. The number of these infections could
be cut down with an increase in the availabili
ty of the drugs AZT and Nevirapine. A preg
nant woman taking AZT during her last week
of pregnancy or taking a single dose ot
Nevirapine during labor has been
shown to reduce the transmission.
However, African governments
simply do not have the money to
buy the anti-viral medications.
AIDS is not the only problem.
Malaria and tuberculosis cause the death of
almost three million people yearly.
Malaria disproportionally affects children.
It kills one child every 30 seconds; almost two
million children die every year of this prevent
able disease. The rate of tuberculosis infection
is increasing due to AIDS. As AIDS weakens a
person’s immune system, they are more sus
ceptible to tuberculosis and die faster.
The Sub-Sahara African countries most
affected by the AIDS, malaria and tuberculo
sis epidemics have promised to devote at least
15 percent of their yearly budgets to improv
ing the health of their citizens, but this pledge
is almost impossible to keep. These countries
must repay $15 billion a year, which amounts
to over $40 million a day, in International
Monetary Fund and World Bank loans, which
leaves little money available for health care
and education. Many activists believe that the
best way to help Africa is by dropping the debt
they owe, but that is not likely to happen.
Africa’s best hope is foreign aid, such as
the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis
and malaria, but so far, pledges to the fund
have been dismal. The Joint United Nations
Program on HIV/AIDS estimates at least $10
billion is needed to effectively fight and pre
vent the spread of the three diseases that claim
over six million lives a year. Only 20 percent
of the needed money has been raised, and
only half of it will be going to Africa.
While the president’s budget provides a
substantial amount of funding for U.S. AIDS
cases, which account for only 2.5 percent of
the world total, international funding is lack
ing. The United States has pledged $750 mil
lion to fight the 39 million international AIDS
cases this year, but this amount does not go
far enough.
This month the Senate attempted to
increase this pledge by an additional $500
million, but the proposal was scaled down to
$200 million under pressure from the Office
of Management and Budget. The Bush
Administration is expected to offer more aid
soon, but, according to The San Francisco
Chronicle, organizations such as the Global
AIDS Alliance do not expect the proposal to
match what was abandoned.
One problem up to now has been a general
lack of awareness to the extent of the epidem
ic, but that is quickly changing. Despite recent
criticism of celebrity involvement in social
issues, U2 front man Bono has been instru
mental in securing the funding increases that
have occurred so far. Nicknamed “the pest” by
his White House contacts, Bono and other
celebrities are reaching a broader audience
than these issues would normally touch.
His trip last month to Africa with Secretary
of Treasury Paul O’Neill resulted in a consid
erable amount of press coverage from CNN to
MTV to Christianity Today, and he is not
stopping. Bono, with the help of the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, has created a new
non-profit organization to help the crises in
Africa called DATA (Debt, AIDS, and Trade
for Africa). With his prominence and populari
ty, he can force more change.
With the devastating effects that AIDS,
malaria and tuberculosis are having on
African nations, world leaders — especially in
America — should be more involved in pre
venting the spread of the diseases and helping
to manage the cases that exist. Increasing our
support of programs like the Global Fund
would lead to others following our example
and help prevent some of the thousands of
deaths that occur daily from these diseases.
Jenelle Wilson is a junior
political science major.
JENELLE WILSON