SAT Essay Question Is a Chance to Be Creative

Re “SAT’s Essay Question Spells Stressful Prep,” Feb. 27: As a high school senior, I am very familiar with the dreaded SAT.

In the last year, many of my weekends were spent in stuffy classrooms agonizing over the seemingly endless pages of bubbles.

Because I am an A student but a poor standardized test taker, my mom felt compelled to spend hundreds of dollars for preparatory classes.

Unlike the accounts in your article, I wish that I only were given the opportunity to express myself in the newly added writing section.

I was disappointed to learn that more students would prefer to mindlessly pencil in rows of letters than to eloquently define their opinions using examples from books or their own lives.

The addition of a writing section to the formulaic SAT will give prospective students the chance to demonstrate their creativity while giving colleges a much more accurate reflection of the person behind the test.

Lily S. Banning

Santa Monica