Posted on 05/15/2003 4:07:50 PM PDT by ZinGirl
Md. Teacher Finds Botched PSAT Question
Student Test Scores Increased Due To Erroneous Question
POSTED: 9:00 p.m. EDT May 14, 2003
The nation's largest testing company has increased the PSAT scores of nearly 500,000 high school juniors after the company concluded it was wrong about the correct answer to a grammar question posed on the exam last October.
Students were asked if anything was grammatically wrong with the following sentence: "Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create novels that arise from and express the injustices African-Americans have endured."
The correct choice on the multiple choice exam was originally listed as "no error" by the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, N.J., which administers the PSAT and SAT for the College Board. The PSAT is aimed at helping juniors prepare for the SAT college entrance exam in their senior year.
Maryland high school journalism teacher Kevin Keegan spotted the botched question in late January.
He informed ETS that the sentence was incorrect because the pronoun in the sentence -- "her" -- was used improperly. Keegan said pronouns should only refer to nouns and in this case Morrison's name is used as an adjective.
The ETS said a committee of experts signed off on the question, which was posed on the exam given Oct. 15 to 1.8 million juniors.
In letters and telephone calls, Keegan persevered.
From experience, he knew that the loss of one or two points on the PSAT could disqualify a junior from becoming a National Merit commended student or a National Merit semifinalist. National Merit academic honors are determined by PSAT scores.
"I have taught dozens of kids over the years who have missed those two cutoffs by one point or one question," he said.
Based on a review by three experts, ETS this month informed Keegan and the students that the sentence would not be counted in the scoring. As a result, the scores of 480,000 students will rise.
Lee Jones, a College Board vice president, said the National Merit Scholarship Program has also agreed to adjust its limits.
"He was persistent in his point and we appreciate that," Jones said of Keegan. "And, he turned out to be correct."
Personally, I just recognized it as par for the course. (Uh oh, did I just make a politically incorrect reference to Augusta?)
Take the original sentence...
"Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create novels that arise from and express the injustices African-Americans have endured."
...and now pare it down to the subject, verb, and object...
"Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create novels that arise from and express the injustices African-Americans have endured."
Those three words are the guts of the sentence. "Her" is the proper pronoun to use because it is an objective pronoun and it refers to Toni Morrison, not to her alleged genius. No other objective pronoun makes sense here.
doesn't sound to me like Toni Morrison was a proper ANYTHING. (see post #52)....sorry, can't come up with the Latin version!
Factually, though, neither is correct. 'Massive', despite continuous misuse by news readers and alleged journalists, is not a synonym for 'huge' (or 'hugh' either :^) ). The word's principal meaning is 'weighty' or 'having great weight'. Therefore, the former usage would imply that you will have SERIOUS health problems in the future, and the latter that you probably are a candidate for inclusion in the Guiness Book of Records, under 'World's Heaviest Hair'.
ostensible -ping-
LOL at the caller for F.Christian -- what an inside joke, no offense meant in any direction.
A proper fraud. I tried once to read 'The bluest eyes' . I couldn't make it past the third page, which is a record for me; I can generally make it past the tenth page, no batter how awful the book.
Adverb, actually, and so it would modify the adjective as you said while the adjective modifies the noun. Can this single sentence be used to illustrate all the rules of grammar? Starting to look that way.
The correct answer is "False". This is a true-false test, isn't it?
DWG
Amazing what proofreading might do for one, eh? Sigh.
I stand corrected.
speaking of Latin (yes you were!), I can't help but brag about my homeschooled nephew who is in his 3rd or 4th year of Latin (he'll be 13 next month) and doing great.
That is the problem the best students have faced since tests were first administered. Some amount of time is usually wasted at Mensa club general meetings on this very topic.
Explanation of the Problem
A problem with Writing Skills question 10, in Section 5 of the Tuesday edition of the 2002 PSAT/NMSQT, created the need to rescore the test without the question. The question and directions for answering it are reproduced below:
Directions: The following sentences test your knowledge of grammar, usage, diction (choice of words), and idiom. Some sentences are correct. No sentence contains more than one error. You will find that the error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. Elements of the sentence that are not underlined will not be changed. In choosing answers, follow the requirements of standard written English. If there is an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct and fill in the corresponding oval on your answer sheet. If there is no error, fill in answer oval E.
The Question:
10. Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create novels that arise from and express the injusticeA
B
C
African Americans have endured. No errorD
E
The intended answer was (E), "No error." Choice (A), however, could also be considered correct. Although it is clear that the pronoun "her" in choice (A) can only refer to Toni Morrison, some usage manuals advise against such a construction on the grounds that a pronoun should not refer to a noun in the possessive case ("Toni Morrison's") because the noun is functioning as a modifier. If this advice were to be followed here, choice (A) would have to be revised to read "Morrison to create."
The question was thrown out because it had 2 potentially correct answers according to some usage manuals.
(If the formating doesn't reproduce properly here, click on the link to see the original.)
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