The SAT experience: cold and cursive
My son took the SAT yesterday at San Francisco's Archbishop Riordan High School. His biggest gripe was the early hour of the testing (8 a.m., which is the same time his school starts — he gripes about that too). But later I got an e-mail from the parent of another test-taker who said Riordan's heat wasn't working, that a Riordan student said it had been down for a month, and that kids' fingers were numb.
My son, who tends to be impervious to cold, was untroubled, though he confirms that an adult told the test-takers that the heat was off and they might want to leave their jackets on. If offered a do-over I'm pretty sure he'd decline. This has been brought up to a high school counselor, though, so we'll see if there's any fallout.
The temp was in the low 50s yesterday — this is San Francisco — so this admittedly isn't a case of icicles forming on kids' eyelashes.
What interested my son more was why each test-taker is required to use cursive to copy a statement affirming that they won't cheat, or some such language — no printing. My kids have asked me over the years why they're required to learn cursive to begin with, and I've never been able to get a very good answer. (I'm the one who's actually cursive-challenged.)
My son, who tends to be impervious to cold, was untroubled, though he confirms that an adult told the test-takers that the heat was off and they might want to leave their jackets on. If offered a do-over I'm pretty sure he'd decline. This has been brought up to a high school counselor, though, so we'll see if there's any fallout.
The temp was in the low 50s yesterday — this is San Francisco — so this admittedly isn't a case of icicles forming on kids' eyelashes.
What interested my son more was why each test-taker is required to use cursive to copy a statement affirming that they won't cheat, or some such language — no printing. My kids have asked me over the years why they're required to learn cursive to begin with, and I've never been able to get a very good answer. (I'm the one who's actually cursive-challenged.)
posted by caroline at
3:44 PM
2 Comments:
Stupid College Board probably wants kids to write cursive because it's harder to forge. When imitating someone else's print, one finds it easier to concentrate on each letter rather than a whole bunch of them.
My favorite part of SATs (if I had to have one) would be when the kid in the back timidly raises his or her hand and ask "how do you write a capital *insert letter* in cursive?"
i took the sat in jan 2008 in new delhi. to my surprise the teachers cell phone continued to ring when she stayed outside the class. this is not the kind of discipline to be seen at a sat exam.
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