<p>For the essay, I sometimes have trouble thinking of ideas (examples) quickly, within 2 minutes or something. I understand the question and all but it just takes forever to come up with a cogent argument and quickly formulating ideas then writing it out. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Hmm, you can make up personal experiences. I mean how will they know if you lie?</p>
<p>^ Naw, I did that but I ended up spending a few precious minutes doing that on my practice tests until i realized that i didn't have enough time for a decent conclusion and it hurt.</p>
<p>I think you should try to think of examples beforehand, many examples apply to multiple situations.</p>
<p>Great generic literary examples: Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton, Jay Gatsby</p>
<p>Historical examples: (this is not as easy to do generic stuff for) Formation of U.S. / slavery and its end?</p>
<p>Personal examples (made up): Recovering alcoholic cousin whose life has come back together since sobriety, Workaholic uncle who spends all time on blackberry</p>
<p>Those (esp. the literary ones) can be applied to many different situations.</p>
<p>On my Jan essay (one about originality) I used two very random examples: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Sun Tzu's Art of War... Sometimes you get a question where none of those fit that well.</p>
<p>edit: don't take me too seriously, i got a 10 so if you're looking for advice on a 12 don't listen to me. :D</p>
<p>Ya try making examples before hand if possible, I am pretty bad at thinking of examples as well on the test I took before the one I took today (practice ones for PR), I got a horrible grade because I overthought on what kind of examples I should have and ended up not have time at all for conclusion and wrote two crappy examples while one was good. This time, I just quickly thought of an example and wrote about it but at the same time tried to find another and when I did I transitioned to the next, I was able to write three and a conclusion because I sort of averaged my time out. </p>
<p>Carsonne, there was a reading passage of Sun Tzu's Art of War in the test I took today :), just thought it was interesting because I know what it is now :)</p>
<p>I got a 10 as well, and on the January essay about originality I used:</p>
<p>The Declaration of Independence/the Consititution. I don't remember which. I said something about how it inspired the French Revolution.</p>
<p>And I used 1984.</p>
<p>Remember though: They can't take off for errors of fact (or so my English teacher who teaches SAT improvement says). If you can't remember an author or a title or the name of a main character, sub something else in. Just get it written fast and fill up the whole space.</p>
<p>My tutor came up with five or six "universal" examples that actually work very well in nearly every possible situation. I used two of them on the January test for the question on originality (Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine in 1955 and Rachel Carson, the "mother" of the modern environmentalism movement) and got a 12. My tutor says that the goal is to impress the grader with a pristine intro and really detailed examples; I guess he's on to something, since I've gotten 12's on every single essay I've ever written, including the first one. :-)</p>
<p>Long story short, if you can come up with three or four universal examples and memorize them, you should be fine. It takes a lot of pressure off of you, since it's hard enough to write a coherent essay in 25 minutes.</p>
<p>I agree with carsonne. Its not advisable to waste the already limited time you have searching for examples.
Pick up good examples from history, current affairs and the classics. Then you can sort of tailor them to suit your answer to the prompt.</p>
<p>gg0624, can you tell us those universal examples? Would be cool to know but I will probably end up making some of my own as well.</p>
<p>The ones I use are Jonas Salk, Rachel Carson, Terry Fox (Canadian athlete who died of bone cancer, but raised a ton of awareness/money for it), Jackie Robinson, and Rosa Parks. Research them and try to memorize key facts about them.</p>
<p>It's really hurt trying to make up examples within a few minutes. So preparing several universal examples seems a good way. thx</p>
<p>I actually did the same exact essay(the January originality one) before, so I was all set. I used the Nintendo Wii, a make-up Chinese tribe using new tactics to defeat their enemies, and I had football trick plays if I had more time. I finished my final seconds 2-3 seconds before time was up, and I got an 11 on the essay!</p>
<p>While personal examples aren't the best, just use one personal example if you really can't think of an example.</p>
<p>Don't worry about the originality of your examples. While lots of other people might be citing Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King, Jr., you don't get extra points for the originality of your examples.</p>