SAT Essay in Writing Section

[Simon]

Hey everyone, I took the SAT's in January and only got 3 wrong in my writing questions but lost a few points by getting a 9 in my essay. I'm re-taking this Saturday and was wondering any suggestions you guys would have in regards to improving my SAT Essay scores - some tips would be awesome

Simon

[Simon]

I'm taking it tomorrow - anyone?

[Abu]

It's a bit obvious. Open your SAT prep book of choice, time yourself and do a few essays. Doing them in stimulated timed conditions is bound to help you improve.

Get your hands on a couple of exemplars if you can to see what the markers think are good essays and try to model your answer on the structure of the exemplar.

[Simon]

I've taken a few practice ones, but looking at exemplar essays is a really good idea; I'm going to try that now. Thanks Aboo

[timtamboy63]

I got a 12 the first time around, where I mostly focused on the essay, here's what you need to do.

Use ALL the space available. For new paragraphs, don't skip a line, just leave an indent.

Have a fairly small intro, a fairly small conclusion, and 3 body paragraphs.

Structurally, that seems to work best.

Before you take the SAT, have 3 or 4 awesome examples in your head, which you can apply to almost any topic.

For example, the examples I had prepared were something about MLK, something about Animal Farm, and then some story I was going to make up about my own life. Oh, don't be afraid to make things up about your own life, they won't know. Also, get an example from history, an example from Literature, and a personal example.

Now, my essay prompt was something about Do we view people are courageous, even if they are doing things for their own good.

The first step I did was spend 2 minutes planning, I got my opinion down flat, and worked out how I was going to use the examples. In the margin of the page, I had something like this written down:

YES...MLK, Animal Farm they are both doing it for their own interests. My cousin seemed brave... blah blah blah

Now you really have all you need to write an outstanding essay, make sure your opinion comes through easily, and you are constantly referring back to your thesis/opinion.

Let me know if you need anymore help

[Guest Red XII]

The longer your essay, the higher your score will be. The scoring system is extremely flawed.

Looking at graded examples and the grading criteria and changing your writing style to specifically meet those criteria will help increase your score. Don't write what you feel is a proper academic paper. The SAT essay, although it claims to be a measure of how prepared you are for college writing, is not asking for proper academic writing. This is a huge issue for IB students, who are able to write more academically than the SAT wants. Really, the writing they want is more akin to the elementary school persuasive essay than it is to an academic paper.

Ultimately, the essay isn't going to make a huge difference when it comes to admissions (as most institutions are well aware that it's flawed or are still trying to decide how they should consider it), so don't worry too much about it.