How does the Criterion service come up with its scores?
The Criterion service is based on a technology called e-rater® that was developed at Educational Testing Service. The e-rater scoring engine compares the new essay to samples of essays previously scored by faculty readers — looking for similarities in sentence structure, organization and vocabulary. Essays earning high scores are those with characteristics most similar to the high-scoring essays in the sample group; essays earning low scores share characteristics with low-scoring essays in the sample group. Naturally, the sample essays must be scored very carefully and the collection must include sufficient essays at each score point.
The Criterion service is based on a technology called e-rater® that was developed at Educational Testing Service. The e-rater scoring engine compares the new essay to samples of essays previously scored by faculty readers. It looks for similarities in sentence structure, organization and vocabulary. Essays earning high scores are those with characteristics most similar to the high-scoring essays in the sample group. Essays earning low scores share characteristics with low-scoring essays in the sample group. As you might expect, the sample essays are scored very carefully, and the collection must include a sufficient number of essays for each score point.
