<p>where did you learn your grammar rules.
what did you start with
how long did it take you to hit 700 -800 CONSISTENTLY.
what do you do for each section?</p>
<p>Much help appreciated.</p>
<p>One of my friends who isn’t a native speaker studied like hell for the writing section. She ended up getting a 590… Her score never really improved from studying. She took the PR course too. I think it’s all about your background, how long you’ve been speaking the language, how often you read books… etc</p>
<p>My brother never bothered to study… He got an 800 (with 5 minutes left to sleep after each writing section). So I REALLY think your background plays a HUGE role in your score. Don’t know if studying helps much… Though I’m sure a lot of people may think otherwise!!!</p>
<p>Grammar rules I didn’t really “learn” besides parallelism and maybe some of the more obscure rules like literary and historic present tense and some of the idioms.</p>
<p>I started off with a mid 600, around a 660 or so.</p>
<p>I got a 720 on the writing section (missed 5 MC) on the June SAT and this was done with no practice in over 6 months. When I started to take some practice tests, I saw my scores progressively get better and better, so by around the 3rd test I was missing nothing or 1 (on one occasion 2) question overall.</p>
<p>Basically for finding sentence errors I totally disregard what the sentence is actually saying. I couldn’t care less of what some generic historical figure did. Basically, I read the sentence a little slower than I would naturally, stressing the underlined portions. The majority of the time I can pick up the answer by not even reading the entire question, well unless the answer is D or E. But this technique helps me a lot since it keeps my pace consistent and helps me figure out the problems in the sentence. </p>
<p>The SAT Writing is definitely the most predictable part of the test, since there are only so many grammar errors to test. I would suggest reading [SAT:</a> Improve SAT Score with SparkNotes: The Seven Deadly Screw-Ups](<a href=“http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/newsat/chapter8section3.rhtml]SAT:”>http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/newsat/chapter8section3.rhtml). It serves as a great refresher for the majority of the grammar rules tested. If you know that cold you can easily score in the low 700 - mid 700’s (as long as you have a decent essay). I do sometimes miss a question or two, most of the time to some idiom rule I don’t know, but you can study for that. Even then, there’s probably a max of 2 questions idiom questions on the entire writing section, with one of them being extremely easy.</p>
<p>Also don’t be scared with having No errors, especially a few in a small amount of questions. There always seems to be at least 4-5 no errors on the first section of the writing test, always, and a good amount of the time they are on the second page of the finding sentence errors portion. If you know your rules enough you shouldn’t ever miss them. What I do is cross off the parts I know for a fact are correct, by looking at subject verb agreements, parallelism, etc. Then I look at the part that might be giving me trouble and read the sentence a few times, trying to find a reason for it to be wrong. If nothing comes up, I answer no error.</p>
<p>For improving sentences, I just read all the answer choices and replace them with the underlined portion of the question. You can easily knock out 2-3 of the answer choices due to them just being horribly written. From there on out it’s just back to those grammar rules.</p>
<p>As a general rule, always choose the least wordy sentence if two sentences appear to be correct. This is also helpful for eliminating choices- If 2 out of the 5 sentences are drastically longer than the underlined portion and the other answer choices, you can almost always cross those out without even looking. Though I wouldn’t totally recommend this if you are fast enough, but this is helpful if you always feel that you are racing against the clock on the writing sections.</p>
<p>The improving passages part is no doubt the easiest, just read all the answer choices and find out why each choice is right or wrong. You really don’t have to read the passage if you are strapped for time, but I do just to help me keep the gist of the subjects and tenses.</p>
<p>Really you can easily improve this with minimal effort as long as you study those grammar rules. That Sparknotes link is probably the best fast review of what the SAT tests. Do that and take practice tests and you will be much faster at picking up the answers, leaving you more time to spend on other questions.</p>
<p>Finally, make sure you are concentrated on the test and don’t screw around/go too fast.</p>
<p>I just took an entire writing section and finished both of them well before the allotted time. I wanted to save some time and decided to just check my work. Turns out that I missed 1 question. Number three on section 10 lol, an easy question. 
</p>
<p>Overall, I’m confident that anyone can improve their score in a few days by a fair amount of points as long as the study and take practice tests, and review those practice tests.</p>
<p>lockdown, thanks a lot for the information. seems like its not all just “memorizing grammar rules”. Fortunately, I am still a junior =] and am NOT taking october test (november test). So I still ahve an ample amount of time to study (and I will not waste it). Thanks again for the good information. I will make sure to review sparknotes again.</p>
<p>I’m retaking next month, and hoping for an 800. I got a 750 or 760 first time without studying. Despite my perfect MC score on the section, I was 50 points away…why? A 7/12 essay. the essay makes a difference, so I’d work on that</p>
<p>I have an interesting history with the Writing section… </p>
<p>I took the SAT in January 2009, and received a 580 in Writing. To this day, I feel that I must have mis-bubbled by answer sheet - some of you may remember my post here on CC where I was freaking out.</p>
<p>I re-took the SAT in March, and received an 800. I didn’t study between the two tests, and only received a slightly better score on the essay (8 to 9).</p>
<p>I feel it is very difficult to study for the Writing section; at my school, a private school with a “classical” curriculum, we have grammar drilled into us from first grade all the way to senior year. Reading also helps. Trying to improve one’s Writing score is a long-term commitment that involves buying a style/grammar book (my favorites are Strunk and White’s <em>The Elements of Style</em> and <em>Style: Lessons in Clarit and Grace</em>), studying it thoroughly, and reading eloquent prose regularly (a.k.a. not <em>People</em> magazine).</p>
<p>If one doesn’t have time for all that, one can focus on the following topics which the Writing section tends to test:</p>
<p>-Misplaced and dangling modifiers
-Use of possessive prior to a gerund
-ADVERBS V. ADJECTIVES (He ran quick. versus He ran quickly.)
-parrallelism</p>
<p>If one does not know any of these concepts, one need only google them; there are some great grammar resources out there.</p>
<p>Hope I was able to help,</p>
<p>Matt</p>
<p>“I re-took the SAT in March, and received an 800. I didn’t study between the two tests, and only received a slightly better score on the essay (8 to 9).”</p>
<p>I got an eight or nine on the essay as well but a perfect on the MC section and received a 740…</p>
<p>“I got an eight or nine on the essay as well but a perfect on the MC section and received a 740”</p>
<p>that’s just not true. You’re missing something or aren’t remembering right. Perfect 80 writing MC + 8/9 is NOT a 740.</p>
<p>I have the January 08 test for example and an 80 MC and 9 essay is an 800 (790 for 8 essay).</p>
<p>The curve doesn’t differ by 50 points. And you can search for discussion of past curves on this website.</p>
<p>I took the SAT November of 2007. -1 MC (still an 80) and got a 10 essay for an 800.</p>
<p>It was from June 2008, and I got a perfect on the MC and an eight on the essay.</p>
<p>unlucky curve maybe?
turtle where did u learn teh grammar rules?</p>
<p>Honestly, just go to Sparknotes and memorize the not even dozen rules the SAT writing MC tests.</p>
<p>Agree with Bilguun</p>
<p>got me an 800 :)</p>
<p>I went over sparknotes and still I make some errors. The sentences just seem weird 
I miss around 8 in the middle section then 2ish on the last section</p>
<p>Wt should i do!!???</p>
<p>I got a 80 Writing on the PSAT and a 790 Writing on the SAT, but honestly, there was really no prep involved for that specific section. I feel like its the most repetitive of sections and you just need to train your eyes to quickly hit the problem in a sentence.</p>
<p>I started with 47PSAT and just did 9 practice tests in writing, now I am consistently 700+ (though I don’t know how I’d fare if I didn’t practice for a long time and did it again).</p>
<p>I just took the tests, and made huge threads on CC with millions of questions (why is it this answer, what idiom is this, etc). I learned my grammar rules through these threads, and also through understanding the questions after seeing them so many times.</p>
<p>I know exactly what you are talking about. I’m definitely improving though.
Even though the SAT writing section is predictable, it’s still screwy</p>
<p>I got -20 on my first section
I got -15 on my second section
Then after studying,
I got -10 on my third section.</p>
<p>After some more practice, I’m getting like 6 or less on each section.</p>
<p>It’s hard though. Practice makes perfect. I’m aiming for a perfect writing score in 2 months.
I just started prepping like 2 days ago.</p>
<p>The results are drastic. Just practice.</p>
<p>i usually score very well on writing because i read a lot so i know how sentences and such are supposed to sound etc</p>
<p>if you must “learn rules”, the barron’s book is not bad. But really you just need to practice and read the sentences out loud in your head, you will catch ~75% of the errors b/c the sentence just sounds wrong.</p>
<p>I just went with trial&error method with practice tests. My writing score (on the practice tests) went up from mid 500s to mid 700s after around 20 writing mc sections. If a fob who has never officially learned grammar can do this, you can too lol.</p>