random poll

[rm]

Super busy. Am suddenly curious about this. Apparently most kids entering college in the US this year don't know how to write in cursive. I suspect this is less a sign of the apocalypse than it feels like to me.

So, tell me things (as usual, poll is un-scientific and reflects my biases and experiences (and 49-year-olds can choose which age category they like better!) -- if the boxes don't work, my apologies and comments super welcome.):

[Poll #1607173]

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Really? Why cursive? Do you have to prove you can write cursive as part of your score?

*fascinated*

[jinian.livejournal.com]

They wouldn't even let you in to take the test without doing it. I have no idea what it was meant to prove. It seems like one's real handwriting would carry more weight if they ever wound up asking "did you or did you not write this?" I know what I wrote looked very little like my ordinary writing and a lot like I'd sent an eight-year-old in to take the exam for me.

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

I was going to mention that I was forced to do it as well (although my recollection was that it was for the SAT and not the GRE). It was excruciating, and undoubtedly unreadable as every letter except that in my signature had atrophied by that point.

My assumption has always been that it is an anti-cheating device. It's easy to get my smart friend to stand in for me at the SAT being held at an unfamiliar school, but not so much if he'd have to forge my cursive for a ... ye gods ... that was at least a very long paragraph.

[sevendayloan.livejournal.com]

You have to do that for the SAT, too. I couldn't tell you why. All I know is that there were strict instructions to copy and sign the Ethics Code in cursive or else.