Victory for the ACT Student Text 15e

168 • W RITING

OVERVIEW

The Writing Test will assess, in broad terms, your ability to develop and express your ideas in writing. It is not intended to evaluate whether you’d be a good novelist or how well you’d write if given time to do research and write several drafts. In short, you will produce an on-demand piece of writing that will likely be of rough draft quality. The Writing Test is also not intended to test your mastery of any body of knowledge. The topic ™‹ŽŽ „‡ •—ˆϐ‹…‹‡–Ž› „”‘ƒ† •‘ –Šƒ– ƒ”‰—‡–• ƒ† ‡š’Žƒƒ–‹‘•…ƒ „‡ †”ƒ™ ˆ”‘ ’‡”•‘ƒŽ experience. For example, the topic might ask you to express your opinions about sports, music, psychology, current events, or even modern technology such as video games. The essay topic will be described as a “prompt.” The word “prompt” was chosen because it indicates that the topic is really just an excuse or opportunity for you to write something. The test could just as easily say, “During the next forty minutes, write an essay on anything of interest to you.” However, the readers would then have to deal with essays on an unwieldy number of topics; the prompt keeps everyone more or less on the same page. Essays are scored holistically , which means they are given a grade based on the overall impression created. Bonus points are not awarded for a well-turned phrase, and points are not †‡†—…–‡† ˆ‘” •’‡…‹ϐ‹…‰”ƒƒ–‹…ƒŽ ‹•–ƒ‡•Ǥ ‘™‡˜‡”ǡ…‘•‹•–‡–Ž› ’‘‘” ‰”ƒƒ” –Šƒ– ‹–‡”ˆ‡”‡• with meaning will affect the essay score. You will receive three types of scores for your essay. First, the overall Writing Test score is reported on a scale of 2–12. Second, additional scores are reported within four domains: Ideas and Analysis, Development and Support, Organization, and Language Use and Conventions. These domains will also be scored on a scale of 2–12 for each domain (the two readers’ scores are combined to determine each domain score). Third, the Writing Test score is combined with your English Test and Reading Test scores to produce an English Language Arts (ELA) score on a scale of 1–36. The Writing Test score is NOT included in your composite score.

Test Specs The prompt won’t require any specialized knowledge. ‡”‡ ƒ”‡ ƒ ˆ‡™ ’”‘’–• ›‘— †‡ϐ‹‹–‡Ž› ǯ •‡‡ǣ Why is Hamlet a great play? (You would need to have read Hamlet to respond to this.) Šƒ– ™ƒ• –Š‡ †‡ϐ‹‹‰ ‘‡– ‘ˆ –Š‡ ‹˜‹Ž ‹‰Š–• ‘˜‡‡–ǫ ȋ ‘— ™‘—Ž† ‡‡† –‘ Šƒ˜‡ studied the movement enough to know how to answer, and you would need to reference historical details of the movement to support your answer.) Compare those examples to prompts that don’t require specialized knowledge: Should teenagers have a curfew? Should students have the right to not attend high school?