And thus are, in that respect, entirely unlike blogs. Completely unlike. Worlds apart. No resemblence at all. Like black and white. Left and right. Right and wrong. Good and evil. Alpha and omega. Reagan and Carter. If blogs were the sun, essays would be Pluto. Or some asteroids, even farther out. [Starts to whistle, tunelessly.]

Here's my essay--

I'm against majority rule because all my friends think that way, and I don't want to be in the minority with the geeks.

My son took the test yesterday. He did not think it was very hard, but he was concerned that because of that they would bump the curve.

On the essay, OJ would have written on the virtue of heriditary monarchy. I told my son to think about what is the PC position and take that side.

My daughter took it yesterday too. She said the essay was easier than the essay required by the AP US History exam. BTW, I believe she said the topic was 'How does creativity benefit the world.' Orrin's headline is correct.

She said the new exam overall was easier than the old exam. But it's been 3 years since she last took the SAT I (8th Grade), so that may just be effect of additional schooling (particularly math).

The SAT becomes "new" every 10 years or so. It was crap, is crap, and will be crap. probably forever.

I hereby reiterate that the SAT was created by elitist progressives who wanted an aptitude test to find the best and the brightest among us, and who perpetuated a ridiculous myth of uncoachability that was only really punctuated in the 1980s.

Secondly, a question that I'm surprised has not been raised here, or anywhere that I've seen: just who is SCORING these essays? Is it a committee of Nobel laureates? Is it doctoral candidates? Is it moonlighting gym teachers and "intellectuals" who can't otherwise find sufficient work?

Thirdly, did you know that the letters "SAT" now officially stand for nothing?

"Punctuated." Ha, that's good. It's late. "Punctured" is what I was shooting for.

Seven Machos: Its a game, but everybody plays on the same field. If there were no SAT, we would go back to the good old days of feeder schools. Is that what we really want? I can accept an argument that there should be more subject oriented testing, but in a country this big we need standardized tests.

Robert: Come on, everybody does NOT play on the same field. Ask a kid at Wilson High in DC, for example, if he plays on the same field as the kids at Sidwell Friends down the street.

The SAT is a nice idea but it is weighted far too heavily in admissions and it is not the test that it purports to be. Hence, a kid who gets a 740 Math is clearly bright. A kid who gets a 390 Math clearly isn't. The problem is for the many, many kids who get, say, 570 Math. A kid like that, if she takes The Princeton Review, can easily get a 670 Math. Is she any smarter, or any more deserving of going to the substantially better schoosl she can get into with that 670?

And another thing: everybody already knew the 740 Math kid was bright and the 390 Math kid was not really cut out for college. SO WHAT HAS THE SAT REALLY ACCOMPLISHED?

The SAT should be purely optional.

Seven,

As I've argued before, the SAT is worthless. What we need is an honest test of real knowledge like the A-level or the Bac or the Abitur, where a student is tested over days in a whole series of real subjects like math, chemistry and Latin. However, given the importance the current American system places on 'self-esteem' rather than competence, I don't see this happening.

The SAT is easily 'cracked.' All you have to do is find out what topics it tests and learn those topics. You don't need KAPLAN to do it. In my own example, I took the PSAT cold overseas during 10th grade and got a 63V and 67M. My dad got me a cheap book from Barron's and I boosted my scores the next year to 750V and 720M.

In its absence, might I suggest just scrapping the SAT altogether and merely randomly selecting the students to attend elite institutions? That would probably give us a better result than GPAs from joke schools(my dog could get a 4.0 in the Honors track at my local high school) and the SAT.

Bart:

I did not know it was possible to score as low as a 63 and 67.