Indiana First With Computerized Grading

Mz6 writes "Computerized grading has been talked about previously, however, the New York Times reports that Indiana has become the first state to grade high school English essays by computer. The computerized grading process, called 'e-rater', uses a 6-point rating scale and uses artificial intelligence to 'mimic the grading process of human readers'. The system was tested over a 2-year pilot program and produced results virtually identical to those of trained readers. The big question is, will other states begin to emulate Indiana by tossing human grading?"

Comments

I took this test

[tundog]

I live in Indiana (no, NOT India) and took this test. Being a techie, I figured I'd try to fake out the system. This test works out to be 10% of the final grade and since I had a 98 going into the test, I figured I could afford to gamble a little, figuring if it back-fired I could blame it on a computer error since every one would figure the kid with a 98 MUST be telling the truth.

I almost wimped out. I wrote about 80 percent of the essay (about influence of pop-culture on society - and silly me I always thought society influences pop-culture but anyway). I had 5 paragraphs - 1 intro, 3 body - 1 half-assed conclusion. I reoreded the paragraphs, copied the one I felt was the best written and pasted it into the body 3 times.

Guess what I got.....6/6 (six point grading scale which is pretty messed up because a 5/6 is an 83%). Hopefully they won't audit mine....