College-entrance SAT exam set for major overhaul in 2016

[Buster's Uncle]

College-entrance SAT exam set for major overhaul in 2016
Reuters
By Jon Herskovitz  3 hours ago



AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - An obligatory essay, arcane vocabulary words and penalties for wrong answers will be gone from the widely used SAT exam as of 2016 as administrators try to make the standardized test more reflective of a student's readiness for college.

The College Board, which oversees the exam required by most colleges and universities for admission, wants the test to focus more on what students learn in high school and their ability to think analytically, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

"It is time to admit that the SAT and ACT have become disconnected from the work of our high schools," David Coleman told reporters in Austin in prepared remarks. The ACT is another widely used standardized test for university admission.

"Research shows that mastery of fewer, more important things matters more than the superficial coverage of many," he said.

More than 2 million students take the SAT every year, according to the College Board, which is based in New York.

The new SAT returns to a 1,600-point scoring system from the current 2,400, and the essay will be optional and scored separately. Quarter-point penalties for wrong answers will no longer be assessed.

The math section, which has covered a wide array of subjects, will be streamlined to the three topics of algebra, advanced math, and problem solving and data analysis.

A calculator will only be permitted on certain portions of the math section. Now, it is allowed for all math sections.

The new exam will have evidence-based reading and writing, in which test takers will be required to cite a specific passage to support their answer choice.

It will also require test takers to analyze text and data. A major document, such as President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, will be part of the exam.

The College Board is also trying to correct for advantages more affluent students have in being able to pay for exam tutors and test kits. It, along with the Khan Academy, a nonprofit education agency, will provide free test-preparation material for the new exam.

Wes Waggoner, dean of undergraduate admissions at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, applauded moves to increase access and information about the test. He added the SAT was in need of adjustment so it could better reflect how students would apply their education to college.

"The test had remained stagnant while the universe had moved along. This is realigning it with what we have been wanting and what students and educators had been wanting," Waggoner said.

The redesigned exam will be take about three hours to complete and will include three sections: evidence-based reading and writing, math and the optional essay.


http://news.yahoo.com/college-entrance-sat-exam-set-major-overhaul-2016-002812264.html

...

Making the essay optional is a horrific mistake.  I've helped Mylochka grade many a paper from her college students, and not even the half the grads write competently.

I also briefly had a job in '92 grading essays from high school competency exams.     It's a mistake.

Believe me I wouldn't be here at all if 4x gamers didn't almost always post in complete sentences w/o leet speak or any illiterate crap like that.  Western civilization is doomed.

[Rusty Edge]

I agree.

I can understand that a test needs to be updated over time. I would have thought that meant doing away with calculators AND making the students take the test on computers.

I can also understand that penmanship, spelling,  multiplication, and diagramming sentences - drudgery that was deemed important when I went to school, are last century skillsets.

They have been replaced by typing and computer proficiency.

But effective communication is one of those things that doesn't change. Being clear, concise, persuasive and memorable  are timeless skills. One has to understand spelling and grammar well enough for the computer to recognize it. Oh, sure, colleges ask for essays on applications, but how many of those do the students do entirely on their own? Making them answer essay questions under controlled conditions seems like the best way to evaluate communication skills to me.

Then again, I never attended college, so what would I know?

[Buster's Uncle]

Well I even graduated, and you're exactly right, expressed with better writing than most of those grads...

[Rusty Edge]

Thanks.

[Valka]

I can also understand that penmanship, spelling,  multiplication, and diagramming sentences - drudgery that was deemed important when I went to school, are last century skillsets.

They have been replaced by typing and computer proficiency.

But effective communication is one of those things that doesn't change. Being clear, concise, persuasive and memorable  are timeless skills. One has to understand spelling and grammar well enough for the computer to recognize it. Oh, sure, colleges ask for essays on applications, but how many of those do the students do entirely on their own? Making them answer essay questions under controlled conditions seems like the best way to evaluate communication skills to me.

Then again, I never attended college, so what would I know?

I can't possibly agree that penmanship, spelling, and multiplication are obsolete skills. BUncle, you likely weren't around on CFC some years back when there was a thread about cursive writing. I was absolutely appalled at how many people there who were baffled at the idea that learning to write - write, not print - is important. They said, "Oh, I don't need that. I have my computer." They couldn't imagine ever not having their computers, or enough electricity or batteries. The computer does the printing and spell checking for them, and who needs to know how to multiply when you've got a calculator? 

I'm old enough that I went entirely through high school without ever having touched a computer. I had to get a calculator in Grade 9 for a social studies project, and of course I ended up needing one in high school for chemistry and math. But when I took my basic accounting, the teacher did not allow us to use calculators. The first two days of class involved intense drills in "rapid calculation" where we had to do the math in our heads. It was a frustrating exercise at the time (in 1977), but I'm grateful for it now. I almost never use a calculator to do any kind of math, and when I'm too tired to do it in my head, I find a pencil and paper works just fine.

Do all college programs in the U.S. require these tests? I remember having to write an essay to get into the Bachelor of Education program, but that's the only program I was in where an essay was a pre-requisite.

[Rusty Edge]

We must be about the same age, Valka. 
Can you use a slide rule? I must admit I've forgotten how.
I agree that people won't be able to function without electricity any more, so I'd hate to see that happen.

Otherwise I mostly mastered what I was taught.  These days, I'm feeling increasingly obsolete and out of place.

It's useful to have mastery of  these classic skillsets, but I don't think it is  necessary to go beyond the basics any more. Employers have different ideas these days. Nobody cares if I can handle a double entry ledger in ink, spell without a spellchecker, or do math in my head. They think I'm a show-off trying to make them look bad. Using paper is immoral, because it hurts the environment by killing trees.

Being able to type quickly is more important that being able to write legibly.
Being able to set up a spreadsheet to do the math automatically is more important than being able to do it in your head.
Being able to open and answer a text message is an expectation.

But that's the workplace.
I don't know about college these days, and college doesn't always prepare people for the workplace. Can anybody get a 4 year college degree any more without a computer? Tanj if I know.

[Buster's Uncle]

I was an early adapter, and I don't know how I'd have made it through college without my computer for writing papers...

[Valka]

We must be about the same age, Valka. 
Can you use a slide rule? I must admit I've forgotten how.
I agree that people won't be able to function without electricity any more, so I'd hate to see that happen.

Otherwise I mostly mastered what I was taught.  These days, I'm feeling increasingly obsolete and out of place.

It's useful to have mastery of  these classic skillsets, but I don't think it is  necessary to go beyond the basics any more. Employers have different ideas these days. Nobody cares if I can handle a double entry ledger in ink, spell without a spellchecker, or do math in my head. They think I'm a show-off trying to make them look bad. Using paper is immoral, because it hurts the environment by killing trees.

Being able to type quickly is more important that being able to write legibly.
Being able to set up a spreadsheet to do the math automatically is more important than being able to do it in your head.
Being able to open and answer a text message is an expectation.

But that's the workplace.
I don't know about college these days, and college doesn't always prepare people for the workplace. Can anybody get a 4 year college degree any more without a computer? Tanj if I know.

I've made 50 trips around the Sun.  I learned to use a slide rule in Grade 10 math. I still have mine somewhere, although it's been a few decades since I last used it.

I have to admit that computers are essential to daily life for me now, but I was basically dragged kicking and screaming into using them back in the late '80s/early '90s. My trusty old Smith-Corona typewriter finally gave out past being repaired, so my grandmother told me to take a night course in computers and she'd pay for it. That was back when Alan Alda was advertising 286's that didn't even have mice. My first computer was an Amiga 500, and I really miss that one - why couldn't some of the games and other programs for that have been available for PCs? Nowadays I've got 2 laptops (one's a spare in case the other one dies), and a desktop that runs Win XP.

I learned my accounting with pen and paper, and to this day prefer to do it like that instead of on a computer. At least with pen and paper, I can't accidentally erase everything.

Wouldn't know about college - I got through my college years without a computer, and back when I had my home typing business (that's what finally did my poor typewriter in - overuse), it was a challenge to figure out how to do footnotes and references for online sources, because the APA manual hadn't caught up to that yet. I daresay computers are considered as basic to college now as looseleaf and pens were 25 years ago. Even now, if I were to go back to college, I'd be inclined to take notes with pen and paper since I learn better that way. The more senses you use when learning something, the better you retain the knowledge.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm 49.  How did I avoid the slide rules?  Is it a northern thing, or me being retarded at maths and avoiding them?

[Valka]

I'm 49.  How did I avoid the slide rules?  Is it a northern thing, or me being retarded at maths and avoiding them?

For me, it was a case of being completely inept at regular algebra and having to transfer from the academic math stream to an independent progress class with more emphasis on practical math and more basic stuff. In that class I learned slide rule, geometry, basic business math, how to cope with the metric system, and some algebra that wasn't so brain-twisting (I can't cope with math that doesn't have some practical application I can see; imaginary numbers are just nonsense). That class enabled me to get back to the middle stream of math the following year. I squeaked through Grade 12 math in the last class allowed to use Math 33 to get into college. The following year the requirements changed, and I wouldn't have had a chance. And since I was in the B.Ed. program I had to take a math course in college, but managed to fail that spectacularly. I haven't taken a math course since - that was over 30 years ago.

Incidentally, this math problem of mine is why I look at the Civ games in a completely different way than most other players. The Civ forums are all about the mathematics of the game, and tweaking things to produce a more mathematically-pleasing outcome. I can't cope with that - I barely managed to figure out the whole co-ordinate thing with the 4 layers of maps in Test of Time. That's geography, so I get it. The rest is gibberish to me, so I just concentrate on making a story to fit with what happens.

And when I get around to learning SMAC, I'm going to need help like you're talking a child through it (or senior citizen with only novice computer experience, whichever analogy fits better).

[Rusty Edge]

I'm 54&1/2 .

There were half a dozen calculators in my trig class. Basically the guys that went on to take engineering in college hogged them. So I guess they went to the best use. My step-dad was a surveyor, there was a decent calculator and a decent 10 key at home, so it wasn't big deal to me.   At some point during the year I took an interest in the math we were doing and was actually working ahead of everybody else, all on paper and pencil. I think that was when equations started becoming graphs, and all of the abstractions I'd learned in algebra over the years suddenly made a lot of sense.

There were no calculators in chemistry class, we were expected to learn slide rules.
The trouble with slide rules, amazing as they were, was that you had to know what the order of magnitude was for them to be useful. When you're dealing with numbers which you have no grasp of, like 6.02 X 10 to the 23rd power, I was much more accurate on paper where I could keep track of the decimals and commas.

I have no idea what it was like in other schools at that time. We weren't moving around any more.

[Buster's Uncle]

I thought things like powers of ten and algebra were easy to understand - and I'd screw up enough of the arithmetic to always flunk.

[Rusty Edge]

Well Buncle, the slide rule could have been your friend!

[Buster's Uncle]

I guess.  Calculators were beginning to get affordable while I was in high school.

[Dio]

I can shed some light on the nature of present day college. First, and perhaps most surprisingly, many students still use pen and paper to take notes because it is faster than typing on a computer/laptop. In addition, some instructors place special restrictions on people who use laptops in class for note taking because many campuses have student accesible Wi-Fi that can be used for less productive purposes. Second, many college courses necessitate using a computer with internet access because many instructors now post or use material on special school sites like Moodle. Also, at least where I live and go to college, they require you to have a special e-mail account that is used for official correspondence between students, faculty and  the adminstrative personnel. Lastly, where I go, they stronglky recommend students who are in math courses above remedial levels to have and use a scientific or graphing calculator because of the need for accurate approximations of complex numbers, fractions, ratios, and graphs of functions like sine, cosine, tangent etc.