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Harry Yan

Dr. Peters

ENGL 133

1 March 2018

Argumentative Essay

(intro)

SAT, the Scholastic Assessment Test, is an exam offered by College Board to high

school students in the world. Its score is an important reference for US colleges to decide

whether accept or decline each application to admission. It assesses students’ skills in Evidence-

based Reading, Writing, and Mathematics. A hundred and forty-four multiple choice questions

and thirteen student-produced response questions are included in each test. Gaston Caperton, the

former governor of West Virginia, who is the president of the College Board expressed “most

college admissions officers tell [them] they rely on the SAT to be an objective measure of

college readiness and SAT has proven to be a valid, fair, and reliable data tool for college

admissions” (Caperton). People who agree with him supporting the SAT test have following

major factors in their opinions. Firstly, they think SAT is fair for every student since all the tests

are standardized. In the test, no free response question is involved, and all the answer sheets are

sent to grading machines avoiding the personal biases from different graders. Secondly, every

student has choice to take this test multiple times. The statistic shows that the majority of the

students would take SAT two to three times, and according to the information, students perform

better on later SAT tests than the first one. Lastly, SAT scores are easy for colleges to gauge
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students from all over the world, since the test results are numbers out of 1600 which makes it

easy to compare two applicants.

Although SAT tests are standardized, and no bias is involved in the tests, it only focuses

on students’ logic, but not students’ performance. Logic is very important for learning which

helps people to understand and handle a new concept easily. However, students in college are

required to implement those concepts to complete different kind of tasks.

(test takers learn how to take the test instead of preparing for the test)

(assess students on one test is not right)

(what should a college entrance exam look like)

(Conclusion)
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Works Cited

Caperton, Gaston. "SAT Scores Help Colleges Make Better Decisions." Standardized Testing,

edited by Dedria Bryfonski, Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in

Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010478226/OVIC?u=calpolyw_csu&

xid=65853b04. Accessed 26 Feb. 2018. Originally published as "SATs Help Colleges

Make Smarter Admissions Calls," U.S. News & World Report, 4 Sept. 2009.