xarathion

I took the SAT twice. First time, I felt I had a pretty good essay, but did not fill up all of the allotted writing space. I don't remember the score I got, but it wasn't the full percentage.

2nd time I took it, to test my theory, I wrote what I felt was a rushed, crappy essay, but I purposely filled up every line that we were given. I received the higher score on this one.

Now, this is obviously my subjective analysis, but the conclusion I came to was that filling up more space equaled a better score, and might have had the appearance of a better essay from a quick glance. Seeing as you said you had to read over 20 essays an hour, I have a hunch this was partially true. Thoughts?

In that amount of time you can do random odd jobs on Craigslist or whatever (assuming you're unemployed), and earn enough money to make up for any possible savings you would have achieved.

My friends and I have been casually looking at some wilderness treks as a possible trip next year. If all we care about is the exploration aspect an "outdoor experience", is there really any point in us considering NOLS or other similar organizations? We really have no interest in the team-building or leadership training at all, but it seems like a lot of the treks we briefly looked at seem to focus on this.