The Reading Comprehension, Critical Thinking, & Writing Skills ("RTW") Assessment

We believe that Economics majors should be able to analyze nuanced issues in addition to having strong math and statistics skills. We can evaluate quantitative skills through our four prerequisite courses, but in the past, this led to the admissions process being biased towards those skills. The RTW was created to assess qualitative skills and make application review more well-rounded.

In the major overall, a student body where strong quantitative skills are complemented by good RTW skills will enrich the experience of all students.  Students with stronger quantitative skills will work with students with stronger RTW skills and vice versa. All students will acquire a broader understanding of the discipline and a more thorough understanding of course content. 

With a balanced skillset, our students will be in a stronger position on the job market or in graduate school admissions. Economics is a social science, and we want to make sure both aspects are incorporated into students’ experience in the department.

The RTW assessment provides an additional element for our admissions committee to consider.  Some students’ prerequisite grades may make their application appear less competitive, but a successful essay is another way to demonstrate economic understanding. 

A strong score on the RTW may compensate for lower GPA and strengthen the chance of admission to the Economics major. However, this also means that a poor performance on the RTW may be a concern for admission, even for students with strong GPAs.

The RTW and personal statement serve different purposes.  The RTW examines your reading comprehension, critical thinking, and writing abilities.  The personal statement is where you should discuss your motivations for applying to the major and any special circumstances. In other words, you don't need to spend use the limited space in your personal statement to "prove" your knowledge of economics.

The RTW is graded using a 6-point scale where a benchmark score of 3/6 is considered “passing”, but there is no strict minimum score for admission. Graders score each essay using the following criteria:

1. Understanding of economic issue(s) in the prompt and knowledge of additional, relevant economic information.
2. Organization and coherence of argumentative response to the prompt question.
3. Strong spelling, grammar, and style in writing.

Essays are read and graded holistically (ie, scorers are not evaluating each criterion individually for 0-2 points). For example, students generally will not be penalized for spelling and grammar mistakes unless they interfere with the grader's understanding of your writing. Below is a general guideline for the types of essays that may receive a given score:

 6 - Outstanding
Perfect or near perfect on all three criteria. Essay shows a deep understanding of the economic issues raised in the article and is consistently coherent, imaginative, and well-written, with very few mistakes.

4 and 5 -  Strong
Strong writing overall, but with a few notable errors.  The economic reasoning is not always correct, and/or the argument is not always coherently constructed, and/or and there are serious English mistakes.

3 – Passing
Satisfactory but weak in at least one criterion. There may be fundamental mistakes in the economic reasoning, or the essay is not very coherent and the argument is difficult to follow.

2 – Weak
Unsatisfactory on one criteria and weak on the other two. May provide limited evidence but does not present an accurate or coherent argument.

1 – Poor
Generally unsatisfactory. Argument is nonexistent or very difficult to follow, and little economic reasoning is provided.

1. Read the article carefully, outlining the main points.
2. Read the essay questions and make sure to address ALL of them.
3. Connect in your mind the essay questions to the main points in the article.
4. A good essay will have some kind of introduction and conclusion sentence along with smooth transition between points. The essay should flow logically. Be sure to pay attention to your grammar and sentence structure.
5. Write in your own words. Do not paraphrase or copy any sentence verbatim.
6. Style: do not use slang, familiarities, and contractions. Unless mentioned in the article, spell out any initials into full words.
7. Do not use graphs, tables, nor equations.
8. The article will have some economic content at a level a student who would have taken the introductory economic courses can understand – you may elaborate on specific economic issues thus demonstrating your deeper knowledge, but not at the expense of omitting some of the essay questions.

9. Never forget the actual purpose of the essay:  demonstrating your RTW skills.

   Reading Ability:  you must demonstrate that you understood what you read.
   Analytical Thinking:  you must show that you are able to use your understanding of the article to compose a well-argued and logical essay that answers the questions.
   Writing Skills: you must be able to put together a congruent and well-written essay.

The RTW and personal statement serve different purposes.  The RTW examines your reading comprehension, critical thinking, and writing abilities.  The personal statement is the forum to discuss your interest in the major and any outside issues.  Please refer to the personal statement prompt on the application form. 

1. The prompt

   1. Students sometimes do not understand the economic significance of the prompt they have read or simply misinterpret it. Hence either they are not able to produce an explanation for what they have just read or they come up with an explanation that is, simply put, false.
   2. If there are two parts to a question, many students often answer only one part and then it is hard to judge their essay accurately.
   3. Key Takeaway:
      1. Read the prompt carefully:
         1. Make sure you answer the actual question from the prompt
         2. Make sure you answer all the questions

1. Too much of the essay is devoted to summarizing the article and not enough to answering the prompt

   1. Students just summarize the article - this is especially visible in macroeconomic essays.  Even if sentences are not copied from the essay, they are often merely paraphrased and there are hardly any original thoughts.
   2. In the end, they conclude by answering the question in 1-2 sentences.
   3. Sometimes after writing a decent summary of what they have read in the article, students don't have enough time left to provide their own ideas. Hence they submit unfinished pieces.
   4. Usually (around 70 percent of the students), after summarizing, students would write two to three sentences of their own to answer the questions in the article.
   5. Key Takeaway:

      1. Do not devote any more than a third of your essay presenting the main lines of the article

          

2. Grammar, language and sentence structure

   1. A lot of students have difficulty explaining themselves. Sometimes it is hard to understand what they are trying to put forward either because they are not setting up their sentences right or they aren't using the right words.
   2. Key Takeaway:
      1. Make your points very clear
         1. Use short sentences

3. Content

   1. Students do not use economic concepts and logic to make arguments. Mostly, they use discussions and opinions floating around the internet and social media about issues.
   2. Key Takeaway
      1. Do not fill your essay with trivialities

         1. Remember what you learned in ECON 200 & 201

             

4. Some advice concerning the lack of originality in essays

   1. To help with original idea generation, I would suggest students evaluate the article using relevant economic theories that are related to the article, but sometimes not explicitly mentioned in the text. Or even if the theories are mentioned in the text, rather than simply restating the theory in everyday language, use vocabulary obtained in courses to show that you understand the economic theory, and expand on this by comparing the outcome of the event to what economic theory would tell us, or predicting the outcome of the event using the theory.
   2. Also, when the response questions ask for an opinion, again use economic theory (even if the answer is based on your social or personal preferences.) Many times, students answer emotionally or socially what they feel rather than grounding their response in theory. Although I believe it is fine if their social opinion does not coincide with economic theory, the student should be able to portray their knowledge of economics, and then afterwards, if necessary, state their personal opinion.
   3. Key Takeaway:
      1. Relate the main points in the article and in your suggestions to the economic theory covered in ECON 200 and 201, even if not they are not explicitly mentioned in the text

Examples of RTW Exam prompts and general grading rubrics:

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5