蒋洋洋:SAT Essay评分标准详解

作者蒋洋洋简介：上海新航道托福及SAT 主讲，剑桥大学商学院管理学硕士，北京国际关系学院英美文学硕士，美国马瑞埃塔大学国际关系及英国剑桥大学英国文学交流学习。代表剑桥大学参加2009 年牛津大学模拟联合国及上海国际商业计划大赛，均获得优异成绩。曾于北京奥运会期间任国际奥委会国际奥林匹克博物馆馆长Francis Gabet 助理，为《今日北京》、《小康》杂志多次撰稿。教学风格清新干练，深悟剑桥之所得与国人之所需，愿与新航道各位莘莘学子共同努力。

SAT作文评分时，每个评分者通常会对文章给出1分至6分的整数分数，6分为阅卷老师能给出的分。想要有针对性地准备和练习SAT文章写作，必须非常清楚其评分标准。本文将列举几篇文章，并精析这些文章的优缺点，帮助读者们更好地理解极为重要的评分标准。

一、评分标准

SAT作文的评分者们手上仿佛拿着一根准绳，丈量着每篇文章，绝大部分情况下，这根准绳能较为准确地评估出考场作文的质量。那么这个标准到底是什么样的呢？仔细研究《SAT官方指南》和考生的得分情况后，本文作者发现可以主要从“内容”、“结构”、“语言”这三个方面来评估一篇SAT作文。下面这个表格体现了6分、5分、4分的考场作文在上述三个重要方面的表现：

仔细对比三个分数，一定会发现区别所在。在内容方面，高分文章与得分较低的文章相比，思想性更强，事例也更清楚、恰当；在结构方面，高分文章让人一目了然，中心更突出、连贯性也更好；在语言方面，高分文章的词句更丰富多彩、更达意，错误也更少。

至于3分或以下的文章，我们也可以做出以下推论：内容方面，论述不甚到位、思辨性不够强、事例或理由等证据力度不够；结构方面，中心不太明确、连贯性较弱；语言方面，词句欠斟酌或不够丰富、语法和惯用法等方面错误较多。

二、文章评析

接下来，各位将读到几篇真题作文。希望读者认真阅读各篇文章之后，对照上面表格里所描述的“内容”、“结构”、“语言”这三个方面的评估要点，作出相应的分数评估（1分至6分），并对照每篇文章后面给出的分数，仔细思考评分标准的具体应用。

1) 真题作文例一

2008年3月的SAT Essay真题为"Should people always be loyal(是否人应当始终忠诚)?"。请读者阅读下文，并评估其得分。

Loyalty is one of the most esteemed traits of all cultures in the world, though the opposite, betrayal is the most condemned. Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell, the circle of the worst sinners, is reserved for those who have committed treasury; the Bible paints Judas for committing a most unforgivable sin, the betrayal of Christ. However, the idea of loyalty has been impressed upon the public blindly. At times, devotion is not only unnecessary, but also dangerous for the follower.

In India, marriage traditions have dictated for centuries that the bride’s family must offer a dowry (usually comprised of cash and extremely expensive gifts) for the groom’s family. The Indian government has outlawed such practices since the 1960s, in attempts to modernize the country and lift some traditional burdens off the shoulders of its citizens. However, dowries are more often than not still presented to grooms’ families today, and trouble arises when grooms or their families (or both) demand extra dowry money from the wife and her family. In that instance, a wife may be tortured until her hapless family members pay up; if they are unable to produce the money, her own husband may burn her in a crime descriptively named “bride burning,” then marry another woman. One young girl, in 2003, who famously demonstrated that loyalty was overrated in this situation, reported the demands and threats to the police. She was immediately praised by women all over India, who admired her bravery for fighting off greedy and cruel in-laws, as well as reporting her husband. It was previously believed that this system of fidelity to one’s husband was absolute, which caused many Indian women to refrain from calling in police intervention. However, loyalty to those who would hurt us is undeserved, and threatening or harmful actions should lead us to break off communication, trust, and end those relationships.

Another pretense under which loyalty is used to take advantage of others is through the advertising tool of “brand loyalty.” Marketers have found that consumers can be cultivated to remain faithful to certain brands for years, and that buyers come to develop personal preferences that lead them to repeatedly purchase the same brands. Modern advertising is largely aimed at creating a loyal customer base in order to stabilize the profits of multi-million dollar corporations. Yet many of these brands may follow unethical practices such as animal testing and working with sweatshop factory owners. By retaining brand loyalty to such companies’ products, consumers are unwittingly supporting the continuation of animal cruelty and unfair working conditions. It is best to be informed about our purchases, and choose products that benefit the world, rather than simply buy a brand out of habit or esthetic preference.

The concept of loyalty is a beautiful one: unswerving faith and trust in a person or idea. However, the unscrupulous have also employed the ideal to unethical deeds. People should determine for themselves why loyalty is necessary in certain situations, and whether or not this loyalty is doing more harm than good. (504 words)

这篇文章的评分是满分6分，你是否猜中了呢？ 没错，这就是传说中的满分范文。现在，我们就对照前面提出的“内容”、“结构”、“语言”三要点，来分析本文的特点。

需要补充的是，因为中美文化差异，中国学生尤其需要注意：不能因为自古以来“忠诚”通常被视为宝贵的品质，就强迫自己必须写支持”being loyal”的文章。当然，也不必因为想要独树一帜而非逼迫自己写与大众观点向左的文章——刻意而为之反显得矫情、做作。正确的做法应当是：先考虑自己是否有说服力强的例子和理由来支持某个观点，如果没有，就从另一个方面来考虑。

2) 真题作文例二

2007年6月的SAT Essay真题为"Do people truly benefit from hardship and misfortune(人们是否真正能从困难和不幸中受益)?"。同样，请读者阅读下文，并评估其得分。

Misfortune makes life difficult and bitter, but it can also give us a chance to reflect upon ourselves. As the saying goes, “Misfortune tells us what fortune is”. It is the pain from the misfortune that makes us know that dreams are not as easy as we think to come true. All we need to do is go through the misfortune and benefit from it. Some people may argue that we cannot gain anything from misfortune, what we get is tears and broken hearts. Actually, that is not the right answer.

Nowadays, almost every family has a product from Apple. But not everyone knows how hard Steve Jobs tried, how he went through all the troubles and how he persisted despite failures or encumbrances. The feelings of being fired by his own company make him learn life is not an ease but a big deal. Everyone thought he would give up including himself. God closed a door and will open another window for you. Although Steve Jobs believed in Buddhism, this is still true. He opened an animation company called Pixar and earned all the money back by producing a successful animation called “Toy Story”. He returned to Apple to prove that the choice his previous opponents had made was definitely wrong. His passion, his hard work and his creativity were what he got from the misfortune. Misfortune can make someone have the idea to change the world. That’s why we befit from hardship and misfortune.

Famous people always benefit from hardship and misfortune, but the people around us also seem to benefit from the unfortunate things. When my friend’s parents divorced, it seemed as if she had lost everything precious in her life. She did many things that was not allowed before. Because of these things, many of her friends lived far away from her and kept a distance from her. She seemed to know that things she did may make her lonely, which made her change at last. She became more optimistic than before and always told us different stories around her. What makes her attractive than before is her hard-working and humors. The misfortune caused her to change, making her a stronger and friendlier person than before.

One should expect the journey of life to be free of any obstacles. What attitude should we hold toward those obstacles? We had better view them as important chances to reflect on and improve ourselves. (405 words) 

这篇文章的评分是5分。也就是说，评分者对这篇文章比较满意。下面，让我们来看看，这篇文章在“内容”、“结构”、“语言”方面各有什么特点。

整体看来，本文质量较高，但相比上一篇6分的满分作文来讲，在上述三大项评分标准方面，各有一些比较明显的缺陷。

3) 真题作文例三

2012年1月的SAT Essay真题为" Should people be treated according to what they are capable of achieving instead of what they have actually done? (应该以潜力还是应该以成就来看待人)?"。很遗憾，下面这篇考场作文并没有在规定时间内完成。那么，对于这篇没有完成的作文，评分者评了多少分呢？

In society, it is generally true that those who have fulfilled people’s expectations receive fame and money in return, but those who have tremendous potential but always disappoint the public by failing to meet their expectations receive nothing. This rule may seem pretty obvious to some people, but I do not think it is fair.

Liu Xiang is a famous runner in China. We have also seen him as the pride of China until recently. Back then in 2004 Olympics, Liu Xiang astonished the world by getting the first place, Chinese were so excited. Then we start to praise him as a “god”. He broke the curse that “Asian people cannot run fast enough to get an Olympic champion.” We expect more from this “hero” of China ever since, and our expectations have turned into a burden on Liu’s shoulder. He is the only “hero” of running in China, but he is also a human. Four years later, Liu started the same competition in Olympics, the Beijing Olympic Games. This was a very special event for Chinese, the first time that Olympics was held in China. Chinese people hoped that Liu was capable of winning this game in our own country again. But Liu got injured just before the competition, and he quit just at the moment of starting the race. Chinese got very frustrated, we could not believe the truth that our one and only “hero” failed and we started to criticize that our hero is giving up as a coward. To me those criticisms are not fair for Liu has tried his best and gave his precious performance. We can see that he is capable of winning. We should not blame him for that. He is just a human too. He gives us the pride of being a Chinese, but we give him (305 words) 

这篇文章的评分是4分，你猜对了吗？为什么没有完成的作文也可能及格呢（以满分为6分来计算，4分已经及格）？我们还是回顾一下评分标准，仔细分析这篇文章的特点。

虽然本文的开头可圈可点，但文章结构不完整这个硬伤也同样抢眼。另外，本文在时态方面有待做较大的改进。用词重复、句型不甚丰富、代词误用、词不达意等错误也比较明显。当然，本文之所以能评4分，而不是更低的分数，也反映了评卷者对诸如不完整的结构、不够优美的语言等瑕疵的容忍度。正如《SAT官方指南》上所说，评卷者受过严格的培训，他们很清楚考生面临着巨大的时间压力，并不会期待看到完美的文章，知道SAT考场作文相当于平常人们写作文时的稿（the first draft），对错误有一定的包容度。

由于篇幅所限，本文就不再列举3分或以下的文章了。相信读者通过阅读以上几篇示例文章，已经基本了解本文作者想要强调的要点——评点一篇文章的好坏，并不能只从一个维度入手，而是需要从“内容”、“结构”、“语言”三方面斟酌。希望考生们谨记这些评分关键词，争取从各方面满足阅卷者的期待。最后，祝考生们获得SAT高分！

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