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Real life has never sprung a random topic on me at 7:30 AM and required me to have a handwritten essay written 25 minutes later. This essay, in a wildly naive a

Real life has never sprung a random topic on me at 7:30 AM and required me to have a handwritten essay written 25 minutes later. This essay, in a wildly naive attempt to limit the subjective value of writing, was judged largely on "coherency". We had computers back in 2005, and almost all students typed their school essays out, but the college board hadn't got with it. Since it took me so long to handwrite things, I didn't have a moment to think about the topic. Instead, my strategy was to prepare an extremely formulaic essay, and then furiously write as fast as I could. Hey, it worked, except I was already stressed and tired by the end of the essay with over 3 hours of test to go. To backtrack a bit, I've always assumed the SAT to be about aptitude for reasoning, not about throwing "real life" challenges at you.

anigbrowl 13y ago
Real life has never sprung a random topic on me at 7:30 AM and required me to have a handwritten essay written 25 minutes later. But you knew in advance taht you were going to have to write an essay when you took the SAT, no? And while it may not have happened to you since, I can think of numerous examples where people have to do exactly that - lawyers, managers, doctors... I'm sorry you find it hard to write things by hand, but that's something most people learn to deal with in junior school. I was a very slow writer myself, and I overcame it with...practice. Indeed, when under time pressure to write something I often find it easier to write by hand because I don't have editing facilities available beyond basic crossing-out.
- watwut 13y ago
  He did knew it advance and thus memorized formulaic essay. Yes, you can also get faster at writing by practice. The problem is that speed of writing is irrelevant in almost all contexts and training it ridiculous waste of time - unless you need SAT. Which is reasonable complaint about SAT. If they would be measuring how fast you run, then you could prepare for it by running a lot. It would not make it the best possible test. Mangers and doctors do not write essays on random topics. They write texts about their work on topics they supposedly know well.

anigbrowl 13y ago

Real life has never sprung a random topic on me at 7:30 AM and required me to have a handwritten essay written 25 minutes later. But you knew in advance taht you were going to have to write an essay when you took the SAT, no? And while it may not have happened to you since, I can think of numerous examples where people have to do exactly that - lawyers, managers, doctors... I'm sorry you find it hard to write things by hand, but that's something most people learn to deal with in junior school. I was a very slow writer myself, and I overcame it with...practice. Indeed, when under time pressure to write something I often find it easier to write by hand because I don't have editing facilities available beyond basic crossing-out.

watwut 13y ago
He did knew it advance and thus memorized formulaic essay. Yes, you can also get faster at writing by practice. The problem is that speed of writing is irrelevant in almost all contexts and training it ridiculous waste of time - unless you need SAT. Which is reasonable complaint about SAT. If they would be measuring how fast you run, then you could prepare for it by running a lot. It would not make it the best possible test. Mangers and doctors do not write essays on random topics. They write texts about their work on topics they supposedly know well.