College Prep: Famous Authors Take The SAT!

You know that bad dream? The one where you’re taking a test that you haven’t prepped for? And you wind up with the night sweats and an extreme case of sleep-eating? Somehow, our friends at Figment.com managed to convince two of our favorite authors to actually LIVE that nightmare. Lauren McLaughlin (Scored) and Scott Westerfeld (Leviathan) agreed to subject themselves to the essay portion of the SAT—and to have their responses scored for the whole world to see. (Cue a fresh bout of the night sweats.)

So how’d they do? Click over to the next page to see their graded essays – with our scorer’s comments in bold and italics. Boomie Aglietti, a writer and tutor for Revolution Prep (who claims to have scored four billion on the SATs) assessed the authors’ essays, using the real SAT grading rubric.

On December 8 at 7 p.m. ET, Scott and Lauren will be joined by David Levithan (Will Grayson, Will Grayson) and Robin Wasserman (Cold Awakening ) to take questions from young writers about what they learned about writing when they were in high school. Click here to find out more.

The Guidelines

The essay gives you an opportunity to show how effectively you can develop and express ideas. You should, therefore, take care to develop your point of view, present your ideas logically and clearly, and use language precisely.

Your essay must be written on the lines provided on your answer sheet — you will receive no other paper on which to write. You will have enough space if you write on every line, avoid wide margins, and keep your handwriting to a reasonable size. Remember that people who are not familiar with your handwriting will read what you write. Try to write or print so that what you are writing is legible to those readers.

You have twenty-five minutes to write an essay on the topic assigned below. DO NOT WRITE ON ANOTHER TOPIC. AN OFF-TOPIC ESSAY WILL RECEIVE A SCORE OF ZERO.

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

All communities and groups have reliable rules of right and wrong in the form of laws, values, and social standards. It is therefore generally assumed that most people know the difference between right and wrong and that they usually know the right thing to do. This view is simplistic, however. People often find themselves in complex situations for which no rule provides adequate guidance and the right course of action is unclear.

Assignment: Is it often difficult for people to determine what is the right thing to do? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Click to the next page for Lauren and Scott's essays.

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Comments

[realpragmatist]

09:11 AM on 12/06/2011

I scored a 99.5 percentile in the creative writing portion of WAITE IQ test (IQ of 140). But I am not sure whether I would score a 6 in the writing portion every time in any of these tests. It might be 5, or even 4 rather than a perfect 6 in my opinion.

[Vic22]

11:16 PM on 12/05/2011

I hope they grade them more accurately than the GMAT essay. By following a format I got from looking at a GMAT book the day before the test, it was an easy 6 out of 6. In fact, I think a 6 out of 6 on the GMAT essay is something like the 86%, because 14% of people score perfect

[0x00000000]

09:36 PM on 12/05/2011

"College Prep: Famous Authors Take The SAT!"

The authors did *not* participate in an actual administration of the SAT (i.e., pay the fee, take the test under official conditions and rules, and have the test graded by the College Board (with the essay portion graded by several readers)).

I don't understand why the authors would participate in a *simulation* of the experience of taking the actual SAT. Any observations or social statement the authors might have hoped to make is totally nullified by the simulated aspect of their experience. Readers can only guess how things might have turned out if the authors were forced to take the SAT under standard conditions, sitting alongside other stressed-out students, with an enforced time limit, and subject to whatever grading imperfections the College Board essay readers might have.

So, the headline lacks all integrity.

But I think the really interesting and yet untold story here is why the authors chose to avoid taking the real SAT -- and I think there's an opportunity here for the authors to reflect on this subject, and perhaps even write about it. *That* would be the interesting story.

[kerriberri]

10:48 AM on 12/07/2011

I'm with you; why not just publish the author's actual scores from when they actually TOOK the test as high schoolers?

No Writer Left Behind...

[LongRunAggregateSupply]

02:32 PM on 12/05/2011

Odd that the essays were graded out of 6 points, when the SAT essay is 800 points.

[tavis26]

02:52 PM on 12/05/2011

You're right that the writing section is 800 points, but this includes the essay as a component. The essay is scored on a scale from 1 to 6, by two graders, for a total combined score out of 12. This is totally confusing, especially when the rest of the SAT sections are scored out of 800. You can get more info on the SAT scoring here: http://www.revolutionprep.com/test-prep/sat-prep/faq?open=essay_scored

[sharzilla27]

05:46 PM on 12/05/2011

The essay portion IS graded out of 6. Two graders grade it for a total of 12 possible points. It is its own separate 30min section with a separate grade. The other 3 sections, reading, math, and writing are each out of 800 points. The essay score factors into your writing score through some sort of conversion but is not the whole of the score because there are also multiple choice sections for writing.