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Greenwald(s) Come(s) to the SATs [Dan Collins]

From Betsy Newmark:

When College Board announced that they were adding a writing component to the SATs, critics alleged that there was no way to legitimately grade the writing of that many essays each year and that the test would devolve down into writing formulaic essays. Well, now an MIT professor has written a paper outlining what students need to do to game the test and present the illusion of good writing.

As Betsy points out, the graders of the exam are pointedly instructed to disregard the accuracy of (in this example) the historical allusions on which the argument depends.  So, we’re cultivating a whole new generation of Greenwald(s)s and Wards Churchill.  Great.

Rock Me, Gen. Petraeus:

Schism in the -Ism

leaders of Iraq car-bombing ring nabbed

21 Replies to “Greenwald(s) Come(s) to the SATs [Dan Collins]”

  1. Carin says:

    The link is wrong.

  2. …present the illusion of good writing.

    And there are programs for when they are already in college, and can safely drop the “good” part.

  3. Dan Collins says:

    Thanks, Carin.  Fixed.

  4. Pablo says:

    Oh, shit!

    Four dead, thousands evacuated in Gaza sewage flood

    UMM NASER, Gaza Strip At least four people are dead after an embankment around a cesspool collapsed in the northern Gaza Strip, allowing the sewage to flood a small town there.

    Officials say 25 people have been injured. Many of the village’s houses were submerged or seriously damaged.

    Rescue crews and Hamas gunmen have searched for people feared buried under sewage and mud.

    Angry residents drove out reporters and mobbed government officials who arrived at the scene. A bodyguard for the interior minister fired shots in the air to disperse the crowd.

    The head of the Palestinian Water Authority says the level of sewage in the pool had increased in the past few days, creeping up earth embankments until one collapsed.

    Authorities blame shoddy infrastructure for the collapse.

    Is “shoddy infrastructure” new code for “Jews”? Perhaps not, as the IDF has offered to reoccupy Gaza assist in repairing the system. What does “shoddy infrastructure” really mean then? Let’s kill the Jews!

  5. Dan Collins says:

    The same people who blew the levees in NOLA, prolly.

  6. furriskey says:

    the level of sewage in the pool had increased in the past few days, creeping up earth embankments until one collapsed.

    So much for the dirt berm theory of all round defence.

    Apropos cheating in exams, before my French oral (ok, ok, settle down) in 1967 I learned how to say “You must excuse me. I am deaf” in French.

    Do I still feel ashamed 40 years later?

  7. FabioC. says:

    When I was in high school, I had written Italian essays every month or so. My teacher then put a bit of effort into evaluating them, and the system worked smoothly. Is it so hard to implement, then?

  8. Kim du Toit says:

    Fabio,

    Not difficult: impossible. If there was ever a provision that teachers would have to, you know, actually use their brains, the unions would never stand for it.

  9. Austin Mike says:

    So is there a direct connection between the overflowing sewage story and the gaming of SAT essays?  Just asking…..

  10. But Glenns did better on the SAT than you did.  Good DAY, sir!

  11. RPD says:

    I’ve heard this kind of thing is imminent in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia too.

  12. JHoward says:

    The link is wrong.

    POSTMODERNINANIMATEINTOLERANTIST!

  13. McGehee says:

    Given the subject matter of the previous post, reports of a sewage tsunami seems in keeping with a theme.

  14. Paul says:

    Since most of education is leftist pap anyways, finding a way to game the system sounds fine.  Figures MIT would find a way to give the lefty arts teachers what they want to read, and thus freeing up the students time for objective science studies.  This would be what they call a kludge.

  15. Bender Bending Rodriguez says:

    So, we’re cultivating a whole new generation of Greenwald(s)s

    Is there a part of the SATs where you make an outrageous claim, link to a news item, and hope that your readers are so stupid and/or gullible that they don’t follow the link and find out that it doesn’t say what you are representing that it says?

    GG(s) (assisted by Thomas Ellers and Rick Ellensburg) could teach the course89 on passing that section.

  16. Bender Bending Rodriguez says:

    Breaking: How long will the lefty blogs be able to ignore the terrible news on Tony Snow.  The only way they can stop their commenters from embarrassing them with death wishes is by killing the story, but how long can they hold out?

  17. William says:

    Why worry about writing?  This morning, a national (barely) talk show host and his audience

    couldn’t decide whether or not plants emit CO2 at night. One caller who claimed to be a teacher claimed it was’t true.  Eight grade biology students must be snikering.

  18. Carin says:

    I was just at HuffPo – the added the story a few hours ago, and there isn’t a comment yet.

    Imagine that. They have nothing to say? Things aren’t so nice over at the Wasthington Post:

    Tony Snow….I hope you die from this cancer, no I hope you suffer terribly and then die like a dog from this cancer. Dont keep Satan waiting.

    By playa_brotha | Mar 27, 2007 12:53:07 PM | Request Removal

  19. Major John says:

    Sounds like Hamas needs to trade a few of those guns in for shovels…

  20. ccs says:

    Rock Me, Gen. Petraeus

    Now Jeff is going to have to pay royalties to Falco.  Unless you can say it is a parody.

  21. McGehee says:

    Now Jeff is going to have to pay royalties to Falco.

    Or the estate thereof.

Comments are closed.