So you’re telling me that I didn’t have to take the SOL?

A recent policy dictates that juniors in AP Lang do not take the Writing SOL. They will take it their senior year only if they receive a one on their AP Lang exam.

Different tests have different standards of proficiency and ‘passing’. Getting a five on the AP Literature exam doesn’t mean you will get a perfect score on the English section of the SAT. By this same logic, getting a two on the AP Lang exam doesn’t mean you will automatically do well on the Writing SOL. It may mean that you have more practice in planning and writing an essay given a random prompt, but that doesn’t mean the SOL standards and the AP standards are the same thing.

On the most basic levels the Writing SOL and the AP Lang exam both test for writing ability. But the Writing SOL is designed to test students for the ability to write and use writing in everyday life and the workforce. The AP Lang exam, on the other hand, is designed to test for college level writing ability, going further to specify for argumentative writing and synthesizing material into an essay. One test, the AP Lang test, is focused on a more specific area of writing and the other, the Writing SOL, encompasses writing ability to function in the workforce.

As a student I am all for taking fewer tests and as a former AP Lang student, I didn’t find the Writing SOL  challenging and my class had little to no preparation for the Writing SOL; but in the sense that these tests, while in the same subject, are looking for different levels of writing, one should not qualify the other.

It doesn’t matter if AP Lang writing in considered a higher level class or not, getting a two on that exam, which is not even passing the exam, should not be an automatic pass on a different test with different criteria. A two on the AP Lang exam is not even passing the exam, but it is considered enough to be a pass on the Writing SOL. It almost sounds insulting when you spell it out.

In fact, it is insulting to those who are not in AP Lang and must take the exam anyway. To tell those students that other students who don’t even pass their exam are already so good they don’t even have to take the Writing SOL, they are just that good. This is in no way a dig at AP Lang students, but wonder at the policy that is plain out offensive.

As for the AP Lang students who don’t want to take the Writing SOL, if you could have passed it with only a two before, then shouldn’t you be able to prove it?