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So, the Internet chatter is abuzz with freaked-out high school students who were faced with an essay prompt about reality TV the last SAT testing session:

Reality television programs, which feature real people engaged in real activities rather than professional actors performing scripted scenes, are increasingly popular. These shows depict ordinary people competing in everything from singing and dancing to losing weight, or just living their everyday lives. Most people believe that the reality these shows portray is authentic, but they are being misled. How authentic can these shows be when producers design challenges for the participants and then editors alter filmed scenes?

Assignment: Do people benefit from forms of entertainment that show so-called reality, or are such forms of entertainment harmful? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Apparently, many high schoolers who are really concerned with their SAT performance do not watch a lot of television, perhaps in particular reality television. So, they are a little upset that they will be graded on pop culture that they have sworn off in their quest for academic excellence. Interestingly, the old argument about standardized tests were that they were skewed toward elites with particular cultural frameworks. Perhaps it is impossible to devise a test with no cultural framework.

But, as the SAT folks are pointing out, you don't really need to have watched reality television to write an essay given the preface and the prompt. If the preface was about the rules of Sumo wrestling, then the prompt asked whether a particular rule is fair, I probably have enough to go on to write an essay, even though I've never seen a Sumo wrestling match. But, I might believe, mistakenly or not, that others who follow Sumo wrestling have an advantage.

I feel for the test-writer. Take reading comprehension excerpts. They are usually on obscure topics, and the reader has all the information the reader needs in the excerpt to answer the qeustion. But there is some sense that if I know all about the phenomenon of "St. Elmo's Fire" (one of the questions on my SAT), then I can read the passage quicker and possibly answer the questions quicker, on the margin. (I had seen the movie St. Elmo's Fire, but it didn't help me.) Presumably, if an SAT test-taker was a huge consumer of reality TV, that test-taker may have been more likely to have thought about and had conversations about how "real" reality TV is, on the margin. The actual contest of the shows wouldn't have supplied any insight, but might have supplied examples, which would have given the essay richness and texture.

But any question about reading or writing has to have a topic, so we hope it all comes out in the wash. I often think of this when I write Torts essays. I really try to be sure that I'm not basing the outcome of the question on whether a student knows the rules of baseball or the industry customs in the hotel industry. I try to cut all of that out.

The second SAT prompt that day was on photography and asks a similar prompt about whether photographs are "real" or orchestrated depictions by reflecting the photographer's point of view. Surely there were some photographers in the testing rooms, but that has not caused such a controversy! This prompt seems to be stirring people up because it might possibly give an advantage, or the perception of an advantage in a way that seems contrary to the goals of the SAT -- presumably to signal which students are equipped for college. If an essay prompt might give an unintended advantage to someone who read The Canterbury Tales, then that's hard to complain about because the student may "deserve" an extra edge. The test-takers who are reading Chaucer instead of watching television however may feel cheated if the Survivor aficionado just got a higher score on the SAT because she threw in a great example from Survivor: Heroes v. Villains.

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So, the Internet chatter is abuzz with freaked-out high school students who were faced with an essay prompt about reality TV the last SAT testing session:

Reality television programs, which feature real people engaged in real activities rather than professional actors performing scripted scenes, are increasingly popular. These shows depict ordinary people competing in everything from singing and dancing to losing weight, or just living their everyday lives. Most people believe that the reality these shows portray is authentic, but they are being misled. How authentic can these shows be when producers design challenges for the participants and then editors alter filmed scenes?

Assignment: Do people benefit from forms of entertainment that show so-called reality, or are such forms of entertainment harmful? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Apparently, many high schoolers who are really concerned with their SAT performance do not watch a lot of television, perhaps in particular reality television. So, they are a little upset that they will be graded on pop culture that they have sworn off in their quest for academic excellence. Interestingly, the old argument about standardized tests were that they were skewed toward elites with particular cultural frameworks. Perhaps it is impossible to devise a test with no cultural framework.

But, as the SAT folks are pointing out, you don't really need to have watched reality television to write an essay given the preface and the prompt. If the preface was about the rules of Sumo wrestling, then the prompt asked whether a particular rule is fair, I probably have enough to go on to write an essay, even though I've never seen a Sumo wrestling match. But, I might believe, mistakenly or not, that others who follow Sumo wrestling have an advantage.

I feel for the test-writer. Take reading comprehension excerpts. They are usually on obscure topics, and the reader has all the information the reader needs in the excerpt to answer the qeustion. But there is some sense that if I know all about the phenomenon of "St. Elmo's Fire" (one of the questions on my SAT), then I can read the passage quicker and possibly answer the questions quicker, on the margin. (I had seen the movie St. Elmo's Fire, but it didn't help me.) Presumably, if an SAT test-taker was a huge consumer of reality TV, that test-taker may have been more likely to have thought about and had conversations about how "real" reality TV is, on the margin. The actual contest of the shows wouldn't have supplied any insight, but might have supplied examples, which would have given the essay richness and texture.

But any question about reading or writing has to have a topic, so we hope it all comes out in the wash. I often think of this when I write Torts essays. I really try to be sure that I'm not basing the outcome of the question on whether a student knows the rules of baseball or the industry customs in the hotel industry. I try to cut all of that out.

The second SAT prompt that day was on photography and asks a similar prompt about whether photographs are "real" or orchestrated depictions by reflecting the photographer's point of view. Surely there were some photographers in the testing rooms, but that has not caused such a controversy! This prompt seems to be stirring people up because it might possibly give an advantage, or the perception of an advantage in a way that seems contrary to the goals of the SAT -- presumably to signal which students are equipped for college. If an essay prompt might give an unintended advantage to someone who read The Canterbury Tales, then that's hard to complain about because the student may "deserve" an extra edge. The test-takers who are reading Chaucer instead of watching television however may feel cheated if the Survivor aficionado just got a higher score on the SAT because she threw in a great example from Survivor: Heroes v. Villains.

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