<p>I scored a 540 on writing and I'm desperately trying to raise it now. I tried Barrons book and it helped me learn quite a bit of new stuff aftering going through the improving sentence section.</p>
<p>After going through the improving sentence section, I tried a practice test (Barron) and still scored a 540. My main problem was going too slow. Could anybody share their thinking process? like for example, check for awkward sound, subject noun agreement, parallelism, adv.?</p>
<p>In what order do you check your writing sentences.</p>
<p>i'm trying to use both right now, but i hear from everybody that people with high scores usually develop a trick while they prep for writing. Would anybody be kind and share their trick?</p>
<p>To me, the writing section is probably the easiest of all because there are only a few tricks the College Board throws at you. Once you learn what these are, writing should go pretty quickly since you know what to look for. I suggest subscribing to the SAT question of the Day (many of these questions are taken from the blue book) but the difference is that upon answering the question the College Board gives you an explanation as to why it's correct. The SAT online course also gives similar explanations. After reading a number of explanations you'll find that there are only a few errors that CB ever tests. You'll know to look for these once you read each question and hopefully the section should go faster for you.</p>
<p>A few things I look for:
-shift in pronoun use (this one usually isn't too difficult to spot)
-subject-verb disagreement (this one can usually be a little trickier when you come across more convoluted sentences)
-redundancy
-"improper coordination" i.e. separating two independent clauses by a comma instead of by a semicolon, period, or "and"
-errors in parallelism
-any missing punctuation, such as a comma, period, etc.
-improper idiom or preposition
-incorrect adjective form - ex. "most" is needed instead of "more"</p>
<p>This could very well be almost all of the errors that ever occur in CB's questions. I'll post any more that I think of. Let me know if you want me to post an example question involving one of these errors.</p>
<p>In 1952, when the Federal Communications Commission lifted its ban on new television stations, there were 105 stations and 15 million households with television sets, but by 1956 the number of stations had grown to almost 500 and the number of households with sets at nearly 35 million.</p>
<p>A. there were
B. but by
C. had grown
D. at nearly
E. no error</p>
<p>For the essay, if you study the history of any one major country, you should be able to have examples coming out of your head like it's nothing. I write about Germany and Italy all the time.</p>
<p>okay heres what i was thinking as i did this.</p>
<p>its not A because there were correctly pairs up with stations
its not B because it sounds pretty correct (shaky on this though)
C.... i'm not too sure because i'm not too sure about the usage of had/have. i know the noun had modifies is plural, but i'm not sure if i have to use "have", but i'm guessing you don't. so i'm guessing it's correct
D sounds awkward. so my answer is at D. I would guess it should be "to nearly" because its less awkward and its parallel.</p>