Hi everyone~
As an international student from China, I am wondering if using historic events in China for SAT essay is OK. Some people told me that I should use “Ameican” examples (e.g. American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, FDR and the Great Depression, MLK), which I am not very familiar with and I don’t think I can explain them very well.
Is using “foreign examples” OK for SAT essay? Will that harm my score? For example, I’d like to talk about contemporary events like The Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, and some anti-government protests and campaigns, as well as discussing the success of some specific Chinese companies during the recent years. I believe I can explain them clearly and critically. But several concerns:
- That the marker, in most cases, won’t be familiar with the examples I use, as I will write my SAT in America and obviously most markers are american.
- (told by some people) That the marker won’t give high marks for International students (well anyone can be biased…).
However one of my friends told me that my examples about Chinese society and politics may be more impressive and appealing to the readers than those cliched American stories (no offense; it is true that some examples are overused).
I am confused now. What do you guys think? Hope I can find out the answer here…Thank you!~;)
I think using Chinese examples will be fine.
You can use foreign or universal examples like Mahatma Ghandi. Yeah you can use Chinese examples.
Nope, not necessarily. You can even talk about anything, something you have read, personal experience, your family and it would not hurt your score
Thx! But I assume that most people are more familiar with Ghandi and his stories. I mean, the marker probably does not know much about the Chinese politics and history, so they may think that my examples are not solid.
Maybe I just worried too much, when I saw almost everyone use the stories from American history and politics as prepared examples for SAT essay…
Yeah, but remember something there a lot of stories that they may not know. They want a solid essay. Also I have heard that some students invented some examples, but don’t do that.
Really? I mean, I know that faking examples is morally wrong for academic essays. But it seems that many people made up some examples and still got high marks (10~12), as long as they explained them well.
And I think many essay markers are not experts in literature, history or politics. According to the qualification (See the Collegeboard website: https://professionals.collegeboard.com/prof-dev/opportunities/become-sat-reader), they have to be high school teachers, of course. But not necessarily English or history teachers.
They do not have to sound “American” at all. I BSed all my examples and still scored a 11 for a total score of 770 in writing this May. Just make sure that your examples are believable
I wrote about this in another post, but I’ll repost. I remember quite a while ago, someone attempted to test the College Board’s SAT essay scoring system. He wrote positively about Hitler and Nazism. I am having a hard time finding it on Google, but the essay still scored a 6 because it was well written.
The point is that you don’t need a specific position or point of view to score well. You should be focusing on writing logical, cohesive arguments with a variety of sentence structures, good grammar, and spelling.
There is an AMA (ask me anything) from a former SAT essay grader where she states that scorers were “not allowed to score on correctness of content”. You could write about anything even personal experiences so long as it develops and/or supports your thesis. As @scimathguy said, you could completely fabricate all your examples, but it’s much easier to write about things you know and believe.
https://sat.collegeboard.org/practice/writing-sat-essay?pageId=practiceWritingEssay&tabValue=scoring
The College Board even provides an SAT essay example that scored a 6 using personal experience to support its arguments. The most important aspect of your examples is that they should support or develop your thesis.