Jessica's Argument

Students lined up to go in and all are stressing, we talk casually but everyone is inside their heads. I know that now is the time to really perform and my years of schooling are about to be weighed. While thinking all this over the weight of this moment hit me, this will be a score that showcases my abilities to all the colleges I want to attend. The SAT most definitely serves a purpose that is relevant to students as well as colleges. The SAT itself certainly leaves something to be desired however it is a crucial part of college admissions. Standardized testing is here, it’s everywhere and just because you get into a college doesn’t mean you’re done with it. Many will soon take an LSAT or MCAT test and in college a standardized test is a norm in many classes. The SAT allows colleges to see how well you perform in 3 crucial areas, reading, writing, and math. Undoubtedly these are some of the basest concepts to any education or field of study. The SAT allows for demonstration of these critical skills. From this test colleges get a snapshot of how students do in these areas. This plays a large role in the admissions system because not all schools have the staff or the manpower to sift through the tens of thousands of applicants in the 3 month period before decisions are released. Many complain about the culture of stress the exam creates, this isn’t going away anytime soon. College is stressful and a lot of weight is placed on finals which may be a standardized test. The SAT allows colleges to see just how well students can react to this. If you can’t handle the stress of a big test then you might not do so well in college. As for the money, somebody has got to get paid. But beyond that the element of money makes it more serious. If I didn’t have application fees I might have applied to as many colleges as possible, quite frankly wasting selection boards’ time with looking through my application. The SAT fee does two things. Pay the people who grade the tests and also makes the test more serious. With the addition of money students will take their chances at the test seriously from the first shot.

In conclusion I like your argument but there are definitely some counter arguments that you may want to address. The overall flow of your paper is pretty good I didn’t see anything that stood out in a negative aspect. I feel like there definitely could be some work done to your argument though. This topic is rather tricky and you could suffer from many good rebuttal points, I would suggest focusing on this. Really work on thinking ahead and trying to predict anti-arguments. Focusing on these rebuttals I feel that you won’t have any problem with added some meat to your paper as far as the argument goes. Also try to work on the voice a bit more, open up and express yourself more personally throughout the argument.