How I Gamed the SAT
By Karin Klein
Karin Klein is a Times editorial writer.
April 3, 2005

I wasn't supposed to stop dead in the middle of grading the new essay portion of the SAT. In my stint as a scorer, I had learned the rules: Read quickly, read once, don't stop to analyze, but assign a score from 1 (bottom) to 6 (top) based on my overall impression. So, as I cringed over a preposterous assertion in this 34th or 52nd essay on the topic, "Secrecy: Good or Bad?" I should have known my scoring on this one would be counted as "wrong."

I kept forgetting another rule: In the SAT essay, it's OK to write something that lacks a factual basis.

... What I learned is that, like anything else, the essay test can be gamed. (For that matter, the test to qualify as a reader can be gamed.) Readers are supposed to score essays based on whether the writing is organized, well reasoned and written with logical and writerly complexity. Readers are supposed to overlook minor errors in grammar and spelling. Varied sentences and vocabulary are good, and smooth transitions help. We're supposed to overlook the kind of examples students use to back up their arguments   personal anecdote is as valid as a riff from Renaissance history. Nor does it matter if there's any truth to the example used. So if kids tell you (and they do) that revealing secrets staves off insanity, just suspend all critical thinking and go with it.

... Students scored with multiple examples even if those added nothing to the argument. And though the Pearson folks will protest mightily that it's not so, higher scores seemed to go to writers who made sure at least one or two of their anecdotes were not personal. Current events win out over revealing the secret of a suicidal friend.

... Write at least a page and a quarter. Nobody who got one of the top scores wrote one page or less. A few essays that struck me as clear, terse, logical and readable got strangely mediocre scores. More sadly, the test will reflect poorly on many a fine thinker and writer who contemplates deeply and composes through careful honing.

... Prepackage some thinking. Get familiar with a couple of Greek myths or literary classics that would work for multiple themes. One of the very few essays to score a "6" —  a well-earned one  — used "Madame Bovary" to illustrate the harm secrets can do. But the writer could also have used Flaubert's classic to discuss image versus substance, or ambition versus contentment or almost any of the nostrums test-makers use as essay prompts. (Remember, most of the scorers are former or current English teachers   suckers for literary stuff.)

... Prepare a few highly burnished words that can be applied to almost any situation. A prepared sentence or two wouldn't hurt. One essay struck me with its well-wrought line: "It may be the case, then, that secrecy has its own time and place in our vast world." I was dazzled by the calm maturity of that sentence —  until I realized it could well have been composed in advance. Ritual has its own time and place in our vast world, as does protest, passion, tomfoolery —  even testing. No matter, I gave the kid credit for planning. With so little time to write —  in pencil, no less! —  no one can afford to spend time actually thinking.