The Education Wonks: We Have Long Suspected This...

The Education Wonks: We Have Long Suspected This...: "The New York Times is reporting that when it comes to the essay portion of the new SAT test, size does matter:

He was stunned by how complete the correlation was between length and score. 'I have never found a quantifiable predictor in 25 years of grading that was anywhere near as strong as this one,' he said. 'If you just graded them based on length without ever reading them, you'd be right over 90 percent of the time.' The shortest essays, typically 100 words, got the lowest grade of one. The longest, about 400 words, got the top grade of six. In between, there was virtually a direct match between length and grade."