Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Well, if I'd known THAT....

Now I wish the SATs would have been using their new-fangled writing requirement back when I took 'em in 1989, because if what PZ Myers reports here is correct, I would have aced the essay portion, since I have an amazing ability to rabbit on endlessly whether I know what I'm talking about or not:

Perelman studied every graded sample SAT essay that the College Board made public....He was stunned by how complete the correlation was between length and score....He was also struck by all the factual errors in even the top essays.


Now, maybe there's something awry with the statistics here. I was never that good with statistics. But if this is true, then...well, it doesn't say anything good, does it? It means that a key determinant in which college students get to attend is how many words they can use to say something they're not sure is right or not.

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