<p>Generic Name, i'm in your shoes exactly.</p>
<p>I had a 29 composite (in which I had a 35 on the English) and yet I was scored a pitiful 5 on the essay. That just doesn't add up, does it?</p>
<p>Like you, I was going for quality over quantity. The essay wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad - certainly not 4% percentile material. By the time i'd finished, i'd only gotten a bit under 1.5 pages written.</p>
<p>Score: 5. Comments: "Your essay included some specific examples but needed more of them."
That's basically it. No other comments were given.</p>
<p>Considering i'd always scored A's and A+'s on all essay assignments in school, i'm left feeling a little baffled by the score.</p>
<p>What to do about it? It seems to me, at least from what i've heard, that excessive writing is the key to unlock the graders, even if the essay format itself is poor. With that in mind, I think for the June test i'm just going to write my head off from the start and see what happens. It'll certainly be much more sloppy than usual, but it'll be long and filled with tons of examples, and that seems to be about the only thing the ACT graders are concerned about.</p>