JULY 03, 01:54 ET
By GREG TOPPO
AP Education Writer
DALLAS (AP) — High school students will soon have to roll up their sleeves and write an essay when they take the SAT. Not surprisingly, their English teachers are smiling.
``I'm most excited that they're going to have kids do real writing — and they're going to read real literature,'' said Lois Delmore, who teaches in Grand Forks, N.D. ``I think this asks kids to do the real things in education that we ask them to do every day.''
The Scholastic Aptitude Test, the nation's most widely used college entrance exam, will undergo several changes in 2005. College Board officials voted last week to add an essay, eliminate analogy questions and toughen the math section.
Gathering at the National Education Association's annual conference, a handful of English teachers said they are encouraged by the changes, but worried that essay grading could be open to wide interpretations. They also worried about getting the training they need to help students excel on the revised test.
Critics have called the SAT unfair, saying it tends to favor wealthy students who attend better schools or have access to private test-preparation programs.
Echoing her colleagues, Kathy Lawrence, who teaches in Vancouver, Wash., said the writing could serve as something of an equalizer, asking students to think on their feet.
``I like the idea of people having to write right on the spot,'' she said.
But Randy Jackson, an English and writing teacher in Pasco, Wash., said he was concerned about training — ``We'll get none,'' he predicted — and about how test readers will stay consistent as they work through millions of tests.
``All of these are questions that aren't answered yet,'' he said.
Last year, at least 1.3 million high school graduates took the test at least once.
The present SAT consists of three hours of mostly multiple-choice questions. Its two sections, math and verbal, are each graded on a scale of 200-800 points. The changes include adding a third section that includes a 25-minute handwritten essay question and multiple choice grammar-usage questions.
The verbal section will be renamed ``critical reading,'' dropping analogies while adding more, shorter prose passages to test reading ability. The passages will come from various academic disciplines, such as science, history and literature — as well as popular sources.
The new section will boost the top total SAT score from 1,600 to 2,400. Each student's essay will be read and scored, then scanned onto a Web site for college admissions officials to read on request.
Makers of the rival ACT, taken by nearly 1.1 million 2001 graduates, earlier this year said they would include an essay question for applicants to California universities — and possibly begin adding it nationwide later.
Richard Atkinson, president of the 170,000-student University of California system, last year suggested dropping the SAT as an admissions requirement, arguing it failed to test student knowledge. But he said last week that he was pleased with the makeover.
Margaret Pratt, who teaches in South Jordan, Utah, said she wasn't so sure if throwing out the analogies ``is a really good thing,'' but agreed that it's important to test students on their thinking and writing abilities as they apply to college.
``Strong students are strong writers,'' she said.
The new test will take up to an extra half hour to complete and cost $10-$12 more. It currently costs $26.
Jackson worried that the extra cost could be a hardship for a few students.
``To some of the students I teach, that would be quite a bit more,'' he said.
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On the Net:
NEA: http://www.nea.org
SAT: http://www.collegeboard.com