II. Writing Review. Written Analysis and Expression

Directions for the Written Assignment

Analyze the directions for the written assignment section of the LAST. What abilities should your response to the written assignment demonstrate?

This section of the test consists of a written assignment. You are asked to prepare a written response of about 300—600 words on the assigned topic. You should use your time to plan, write, review, and edit what you have written for the assignment.

Read the assignment carefully before you begin to write. Think about how you will organize what you plan to write. You may use any blank space provided on the following pages to make notes, write an outline, or otherwise prepare your response. Your response to the written assignment will be evaluated based on your demonstrated ability to:

• comprehend and focus on a unified, controlling topic;

• select and use a strategy of expression that is appropriate for the intended audience and purpose;

• present a reasoned, organized argument or exposition;

• use support and evidence to develop and bolster your ideas and account for the views of others; and express yourself clearly and without distractions caused by inattention to sentence and paragraph structure, choice and use of words, and mechanics (i. e. , spelling, punctuation, and capitalization).

Your response will be evaluated based on your demonstrated ability to express and support opinions, not on the nature or content of the opinions expressed. The final version of your response should conform to the conventions of Edited American English. This should be your original work, written in your own words, and not copied or paraphrased from some other work.

Be sure to write about the assigned topic and use multiple paragraphs. Please write legibly. You may not use any reference materials during the test. Remember to review what you have written and make any changes you think will improve your written response.

Steps for Writing Passing Written Assignments

Written assignment strategies show you how to write passing essays. It goes without saying that readers have a tedious, tiring assignment. Think about those readers as you write. Write a response that makes it easy for them to give you a high score.

Follow these steps to write a passing essay. You should allow about two hours to complete all the steps:

1) understand the assignment. (5 minutes.)

Each topic provides a subject and then describes the subject in more detail. Read the topic carefully to ensure that you understand each of these parts;

2) choose thesis statement. Write it down. (5 minutes.)

Readers expect you to have one clear main point of view about the topic. Choose yours; make sure it addresses the entire topic, and stick to it;

3) write an outline. (20 minutes.)

Write a brief outline summarizing the following essay elements: thesis statement, introduction, topic sentence and details for each paragraph, conclusion. Use this time to plan your essay;

4) write the assignment. (40—60 minutes.)

Essays scoring 2 or 3 higher typically have five, six, or seven paragraphs totaling 300—600 words. Writing an essay this long does not guarantee a passing score, but most passing essays are about this long. Use tills time to write well;

5) proofread and edit your writing. (15 minutes.)

Read your essay over and correct any errors in usage, spelling, or punctuation. The readers understand that your essay is a first draft and they expect to see corrections.

Evaluation Guidelines for the LAST Written Assignment

Analyze the Evaluation Guidelines for the LAST Written Assignment. What recommendations and steps should you follow to write passing written assignments?

Focus and unity: the writer clearly addresses the stated task, states or strongly implies a purpose for writing and a controlling topic, and maintains a steady focus on that topic. Appropriateness: the chosen expressive approach is consistent with the writer’s purpose and audience. Reason and organization: opinions are presented clearly, and arguments and/or expositions are well organized and ably reasoned. Support and development: the writer offers relevant evidence and details to develop and support the position taken, showing awareness of other potential or actual positions. Structure and conventions: the paper is free of distracting flaws in sentence structure and paragraph structure (e. g., subject-verb disagreements, run-on sentences), shows proficient use and choice of words, and avoids disruptive mechanical errors (e. g., inappropriate capitalization, misspellings of common words).

LAST written assignments usually ask you to summarize a topic or situation and then give your opinion or point of you. Written assignments are rated 0—3 by two readers based on how well you write edited English. The final written assignment score of 0—6 is the sum of these two scores.

A rating of 3 indicates your writing is acceptable.

A rating of 2 indicates you need help writing essays. You should practice writing essays and get help at a writing center or from a writing tutor.

A rating of 1, 0, or U indicates need a significant amount of help writing essays. You should practice writing essays until you can consistently achieve a rating of 2. You should get regular help at a writing center or from a writing tutor. Ask the person who rated essay for other recommendations. Follow these recommendations. Here’s how they score you The raters use these general guidelines:

3: A well developed, complete written assignment. Shows a thorough response to all parts of the topic. Clear explanations that are well supported. An assignment that is free of significant grammatical, punctuation, or spelling errors;

2: A fairly well developed, complete written assignment. It may not thoroughly respond to all parts of the topic. Fairly clear explanations that may not be well supported. It may contain some significant grammatical, punctuation, or spelling errors;

1: A poorly developed, incomplete written assignment. It does not thoroughly respond to most parts of the topic. Contains many poor explanations that are not well supported. It may contain some significant grammatical, punctuation, or spelling errors;

0: A very poorly developed, incomplete written assignment. It does not thoroughly respond to the topic. Contains only poor, unsupported explanations. Contains numerous significant grammatical, punctuation, or spelling errors;

U: A rating of U (Unscorable) means the test is a failure regardless of the score on the multiple-choice section. Any of these factors leads to a “U” rating. A blank paper. An essay unrelated to the topic no matter how well written. An essay not long enough to score. An essay written in a language other than English. An illegible essay.

Your responses are graded holistically. Holistic rating means the raters assign a score based on their informed sense about your writing. Raters have a lot of essays to look at and they do not do a detailed analysis. After each test date, National Evaluation Systems gets together a group of readers in Albany, New York. These readers typically consist of teachers and college professors. They put these readers up in an Albany area motel. At first, representatives of NES show the readers the topics for the recent test and review the types of responses that should be rated 0, 1, 2, or 3. The read­ers are trained to evaluate the responses according to the NES guidelines. Each written assignment is evaluated twice, without the second reader knowing the evalua­tion given by the first reader. If the two evaluations differ significantly, other readers review the assignment. Your score is the sum of the evaluations.

POST-READING ACTIVITIES

Say what you’ve learned from the texts about:

1) the steps to take a reading test;

2) the reading comprehension skills;

3) the evaluation guidelines for the LAST written assignment;

4) the steps for writing a passing written assignment.