The SAT Essay was added to the SAT Reasoning Test in March 2005 following complaints from colleges about the lack of uniform examples of a student's writing ability.

Page 1 of an SAT essay. This student received a 7/12 from two judges, one giving 3/6 and the other giving 4/6.

Page 2 of the same essay.

Assessment and Grading

Students are expected to write an essay in 25 minutes, which is graded on a scale from 1 to 6 by two separate scoreres. The combined score from the two graders is then used to determine a student's final score on the writing portion of the SAT.^[1] The average time each reader/grader spends on each essay is less than 3 minutes. ^[2]

Controversy

Despite the College Board's claims that the SAT Essay is a nonbiased assessment of a student's writing ability, many different claims of bias have surfaced, including claims that readers give higher points to those who write in cursive, writers who write about personal experiences are less likely to get higher scores, and that topics favor the higher social classes. The College Board strictly denies any forms of bias on all portions of the SAT Reasoning Exam.

In March of 2004 Dr. Les Perelman analyzed 15 scored sample essays contained in the College Board's Score Write book and found that 90% of essays that contained more than 400 words got the highest score of 12 out of 12 and that the essays with 100 words or less got the lowest grade of 1. In addition, essays with factual errors were not penalized for the errors. ^[2]

References