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The nice thing about "just base it on the SAT" is that the SAT is proctored. Even if you made everyone come write their 950 word essay in person, that would squelch the original-research component and yet it would still be gamed by students memorizing prepared essays in advance.
Actually ... maybe the proctored essay could work, if you gave assigned essay topics? Come up with ten thousand of them and choose 5 at random for each student to choose between when they arrive (so it doesn't matter if the list of topics leaks; they can still prep in general but not for specifics), even give students a web browser (ideally with library/Elsevier/LexisNexis/whatever subscriptions) they can research from (or copy from, but with a monitored browser that's just a filter to get rid of dumb cheaters).
As a shape rotator I still hate it, of course, but soon or later we'll be replacing the wordcels with matvecs (as well as ourselves, but grudges die hard); if we don't all die in the process it'll be nice for them to have an experience like this to look back on fondly.
In the old SAT, when it had a Writing section and was based out of 2400, had an essay. However, it was very game-able with a simple structure. You just had to do a simple 5 paragraph thing where you introduce the topic, give 2-3 examples, and clearly state a conclusion. Using some fancy SAT words helps. My friend group joked that you could always use Nazis to support your topic ("book burning is bad, when the nazis burned...")
I guess this makes the pre-essay SAT I took "the ancient SAT"? And the pre-recentering version would be "the prehistoric SAT".
I never heard anything about the essay requirements that made me think much of it. My main problem with essays even when they're done right is that the grading is so much more subjective. IIRC there was some hubbub during my SAT year where a dispute about one of the Reading section questions led to a second of the multiple choice options being also accepted as correct, which I'm sure was embarrassing, but at least that's the sort of dispute you could take to the highest levels. I'm reading that each student's essay only had 2 scorers? Cross your fingers that you don't draw one of the short straws.
Of course, my real complaint about SAT changes was that they should never have removed analogies. These days the internet seems to be filled with people whose analysis of "dog : whale :: puppy : calf" is "You think dogs are the same as whales? You 'tarded, scrote?", and it's frightening to imagine that some of them might slip into college classes to ruin those too.
yes agreed. That's why you had to be formulaic. That's why to get the perfect 12 out of 12 score, you had to be obvious about what you did, so no essay grader could give you a lower score. Worst part was that you never got an explanation of why you got a 10 or 11 or 9 out of 12.
Yes analogies wouldve been nice, but it's too IQ-dependent and so obviously "racist"
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Ugh. I feel old. That was the new SAT.
yeah I remember when I took it (out of 2400), it was supposed to be the "new" SAT (though it was around for a few years so we, the students, just thought of it as "the SAT")
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The GRE (At least 14 years ago when I took it) had a proctored essay portion.
When I took it, the list of possible essay questions was public, but also very large. I remember I had at least read the prompt I had to answer before the exam. A quick search suggests ETS still publishes them.
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If the cost of gaming your way through it is higher than the cost of doing the work outright, then it’s easier to just be an honest student and take your chances doing it the right way.
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