I was the last school year that had the old SAT. I had the option to take either one. I said fuck the writing! Ironically, the writing was my best section on the PSAT. But there was no essay on the PSAT. Not that I am bad at essays (I was an English major after all), I just hate them on standardized tests.
I got 5's on both my AP English tests (which are predominantly writing), yet I almost failed the standardized writing test implemented here in Texas after No Child Left Behind. Not surprisingly, I got every question write on the multiple choice but for whatever reason they gave me 1 out of 3 on all my short answers and 2 out of 4 on my essay. That just doesn't make sense if I was able to get 5's on both AP tests, as those tests are way harder!
Just goes to show you that even what they are looking for in government mandated standardized tests is just BS stick to a formula kind of writing, not actual good writing.
Though I do admit I trust the Collegeboard (does the AP tests and SAT tests) a million times more than the Texas Legislature.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
