In a recent article.... a rep from CollegeBoard described forthcoming changes in the SAT.
Late last year, in a talk at the Brookings Institution, Coleman was more critical of the SAT, and in particular of the writing test. He endorsed the addition of that portion of the SAT but questioned the way the current test rewards any argument, without requiring test-takers to use facts or material. "I have a problem with the SAT writing. So if you look at the way the SAT assessment is designed, when you write an essay even if it’s an opinion piece, there’s no source information given to you. So in other words, you write like what your opinion is on a subject, but there’s no fact on the table. So a friend of mine tutors in Hong Kong, and she was asked by her Hong Kong students, where do you get the examples for the essay? She said, you know, it’s the American way, you make them up," Coleman said. "Now I’m all for creativity and innovation, but I don’t think that’s quite the creativity we want to inspire in a generation of youth. That is, if writing is to be ready for the demands of career and college, it must be precise, it must be accurate, it must draw upon evidence. Now I think that is warranted by tons of information we see from surveys of college professors, from evidence we have from other sources, so I think there is good reason to think about a design of SAT where rather than kids just writing an essay, there’s source material that they’re analyzing."
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/27/college-board-announces-plans-redesign-sat#ixzz2NDKOaOBd Inside Higher Ed