9?? Says who?!

redzerb
Sun, 09 May 2010 18:59:31 +0000

I recently got back my act scores, and i was somewhat pleased with my performance.
32 comp.
However; once again, i find myself perplexed with my writing score. I got a 9, which is somewhere around the 91st percentile i think?
I felt that my essay was significantly stronger than previous essays i had written for SAT/ACT (which had also been graded as 8’s and 9’s). I tailored my essay to fit the grading criteria the ACT specifies, yet my essay was judged to have been merely “adequate”.

I guess i just feel that the grading process for the essay component on ACT/SAT is a bit jaded, especially considering that my score of 9 indicates that one of the graders gave it a 4, and the other gave it a 5. So, according to the “5”'s interpretation of the criteria and my essay, i am 98th percentile. It really just came down to chance that the other grader gave me a 4, and deemed me 81st percentile material.
It just seems wrong that the difference in two people’s interpretation of the grading criteria can make a difference of 7 percentile points.

anyone agree?