You’d think the College Board would want to reward kids who avoid lowest common denominator television and parents who discourage their teenagers from watching reality shows that focus on relishing the entertainment value of behavior that is the exact opposite of what we hope our teens will become, wouldn’t you? Apparently, you’d be wrong.
This years SAT essay section featured a question that revolved around reality television. For kids who don’t watch shows like Jersey Shore, either because their parents don’t allow it or because they chose to do crazy things like study or read rather than watching people make a fool of themselves on national television, this came as a bit of a shock.
The website, College Confidential, was overrun with frustrated comments from non-TV watching test takers, according to the New York Times.
One student said: “This is one of those moments when I wished I actually watched TV. I ended up talking about Jacob Riis and how any form of media cannot capture reality objectively. I kinda want to cry right now.” Another student told the New York Daily News: “A lot of what we did in SAT prep classes was to use historical events or literature in our essays. I guess the kids who watch crap TV did well.”
The actual prompt makes it easy to see why kids who weren’t familiar enough with reality TV to reel off at least a few show names felt a bit panicked:
“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?
Do people benefit from forms of entertainment that show so-called reality, or are such forms of entertainment harmful?”
While an experienced writer who is familiar with what the SAT test makers expect from a question like this (like myself) can see how they feel that it can be addressed in broad strokes by people who aren’t familiar with the actual shows it refers to, it does seem as though avid viewers of such shows would have a huge advantage over those who can’t speak to specific examples. Moreover, these essay questions are supposed to be designed so that kids can draw on examples from their studies to craft essays on the fly. How are the kind of example sets that SAT tutors teach test takers to prepare, which usually involve things like Moby Dick and leaders of the Civil Rights movement, supposed to be applied to reality television?
What do you think? Is this a fair SAT essay question?
