One professor's insight into AW & GRE scores

[alexis]

http://science-profe...al-writing.html

The comments are interesting too.

Edited January 23, 2010 by alexis

[peppermint.beatnik]

I've seen this blog before--she's usually quite good.

I agree with most of the post (and some of the comments). I think GRE shows you can write a test in a timed situation--big deal. I did well only because I put the time into understanding how the test works.

[curufinwe]

I strongly believe that the AW part is not a big deal for the professors. Adcomm can experience your writing skills at first hand with ur writing sample. Between "a writing sample on a relevant topic" vs "GRE's -are people more valuable after their death- topics", I would probably care about the writing sample. besides, the people who grade your AW's are TA's working part time for ETS. If I was a professor at the adcomm, I wouldn't really wanna trust some TA's judgement

Edited January 24, 2010 by curufinwe

[rising_star]

besides, the people who grade your AW's are TA's working part time for ETS. If I was a professor at the adcomm, I wouldn't really wanna trust some TA's judgement

Why not? Those same TA's are often the ones teaching and grading in undergraduate courses, thus directly influencing the grade a student receives on his/her transcript... And I say this as a TA that handles all the grading for an upper-level course that is writing intensive (ie, 85% of their grade comes from take-home exams and essays). (FWIW, other students in my department are instructor of record on intro and upper-level courses and I have been in the past.)

So is your argument that it's okay to trust a TA's judgment when she or he is working for the university and being lowly-paid but not when she or he is working for ETS part-time but likely at a much higher hourly rate?

[curufinwe]

Why not? Those same TA's are often the ones teaching and grading in undergraduate courses, thus directly influencing the grade a student receives on his/her transcript... And I say this as a TA that handles all the grading for an upper-level course that is writing intensive (ie, 85% of their grade comes from take-home exams and essays). (FWIW, other students in my department are instructor of record on intro and upper-level courses and I have been in the past.)

So is your argument that it's okay to trust a TA's judgment when she or he is working for the university and being lowly-paid but not when she or he is working for ETS part-time but likely at a much higher hourly rate?

yeah u have a point. but those are two different issues. for one, u grade a bunch of students that do not create a lot of implications for the university (and seriously, how wrong could a TA be? ) and for a professor to grade every paper of a 300-students class is really time consuming. and for the other case, you separate a chunk of university's funding for a handful of students and to read the writing samples of a limited number of students is feasible. so when the stakes are higher, the adcomm would not simply trust that AW grade.

besides, why would they be asking for a thorough writing sample if a student's writing skills are sufficiently demonstrated by the AW grade? All I'm saying is, they'd rather judge ur writing skills by reading ur writing sample than the AW grade.

one last thing, its not like a student is gonna have 2.0 AW whereas he has an awesome writing sample (or vice versa). I was talking about cases where the student would have an AW of 4.5 and would also have a better writing sample.

Edited January 25, 2010 by curufinwe

[rising_star]

curufinwe, have you ever been a grader? I probably spend the same amount of time on a 4 pg essay that ETS readers spend on the 6-8 paragraphs people write for their AW. Theoretically, that means the ETS scorers should be more accurate with their scoring than I am, not less. My question, which you seem to have missed, is WHY would professors discount the AW grade and not the transcript based on your own criteria of who is doing the grading?

My guess is that some programs request a writing sample because they want to see how students write about a topic in their area of interest, in an untimed situation, and with the opportunity to revise and conduct outside research. That said, in two rounds of applying (MA and PhD), I only applied to one program that requested a writing sample. Presumably the others assessed my writing through my SOP and the AW score since that's all they had.

[curufinwe]

curufinwe, have you ever been a grader? I probably spend the same amount of time on a 4 pg essay that ETS readers spend on the 6-8 paragraphs people write for their AW. Theoretically, that means the ETS scorers should be more accurate with their scoring than I am, not less. My question, which you seem to have missed, is WHY would professors discount the AW grade and not the transcript based on your own criteria of who is doing the grading?

My guess is that some programs request a writing sample because they want to see how students write about a topic in their area of interest, in an untimed situation, and with the opportunity to revise and conduct outside research. That said, in two rounds of applying (MA and PhD), I only applied to one program that requested a writing sample. Presumably the others assessed my writing through my SOP and the AW score since that's all they had.

yeah I have been grading the whole grade of 2 classes every semester for 3 semesters now. I didnt see any programs that didnt require a writing sample. and I did not say they completely disregard the AW. i said they would most probably trust the writing sample. besides, what other criteria can show their overall academic quality other than GPA? sometimes people have bad GPA's due to various reasons and if they have other indicators of academic success, they can probably change the adcomm's mind. thats exactly what I am saying. just coz ur AW is low doesnt mean they'll think u suck at writing (provided that its over 4.5 or something like that). they always have the writing sample to check and decide for themselves.

but then again, if u guys still wanna think that its only the AW that they take into consideration when deciding whether u r a good writer or not, be my guest

p.s.: I think it was on kaplan's gre practice book but I remember them claiming that they approximately spend 1-2 minutes to grade ur essays. lol, scary

Edited January 26, 2010 by curufinwe

[jacib]

i wonder what the rubric is for the AW section of the GRE. using a rubric, it is fairly easy to come up with a consensus. having been a grader of ridiculous california state exams, which took forever, i have to say: the rubric was clear. there was almost never any doubt in my mind.

i think the problem with the GRE aw is people memorize responses to prompts, giving an unfair advantage to some (who must study hard to do this).

sarah

They do have a very clear rubric. You can find it online easily in the GRE section of the ETS website (where the supplemental materials are listed). It's actual there at least twice in two separate PDF documents, one giving essays at the 2, 4, 6 level, and one giving essays at every grading level (see what it takes to get a 1... it's actually quite weird). Each set is given analysis why it earned that specific score. The scoring systems are relatively logical, and any score below a 4 would set off alarm bells in my head if I were a professor.

Though they list all the prompts in the question bank online, if you check, there is a rather large number of prompts in the bank. It would be difficult to memorize a specific number of prompts, but it would be much easier to get a feel for the types of questions asks. Memorizing strategies and clear, ready examples that can be used on almost any prompt is much more helpful (for example, on the analysis of an argument essay, "past performance does not necessarily predict future performance" and "correlation does not equal causation" can be used with literally any of the prompts)

[rising_star]

but then again, if u guys still wanna think that its only the AW that they take into consideration when deciding whether u r a good writer or not, be my guest

Are you referring to me? I never said that the AW is the only thing taken into consideration. What I am saying is that there are numerous fields where they don't require or even ask for a writing sample, including my own. Consequently the AW score and the SOP are the only two things they have to use as evidence of your writing abilities.

[Tam]

but then again, if u guys still wanna think that its only the AW that they take into consideration when deciding whether u r a good writer or not, be my guest

p.s.: I think it was on kaplan's gre practice book but I remember them claiming that they approximately spend 1-2 minutes to grade ur essays. lol, scary

I have a hard time taking your comments about writing seriously when you write like this, even in an Internet forum.

[curufinwe]

i was serious about the "grading the whole thing in 2 mins" tip on kaplan's book. i wonder why it is hard for u to take that seriously.

[jacib]

i was serious about the "grading the whole thing in 2 mins" tip on kaplan's book. i wonder why it is hard for u to take that seriously.

Ha, I don't think the above poster was arguing with content of your statement, but rather the fact u r usin letters insted uv words in addishun to not capitolizing or othrewize konforming to standerd tipografik rulez. It doesn't bother me to see the use of shorthand provided that the content and grammar are correct (I have this horrible habit of leaving out entire words while typing quickly... something I've noticed in a few of my posts here), but I can see why others might think it reflects poorly on your professional and academic ambitions. The medium is the message.

No disrespect meant by the way, I am just trying to explain how I took Tam's comments.

[curufinwe]

I don't understand why I have to write in full proper form in a forum called "grad" cafe. but then again, everyone is free to take whatever they want seriously.