<p>What kind of essay did you right? 4 or 5 paragraphs? I wrote 5 and got a 9 which ****es me off considering one of the graders gave me a 5 and the other a 4. I think they should have to give the same grade, or there is something wrong with their system.</p>
<p>Oh, and how was your handwriting? I wonder if they really did take off for this on people's essays.</p>
<p>I'm kinda in the same boat because i spent the time to write 5 and got an 8.
My third paragraph was a little lacking, so i guess i will start writing only 4's.</p>
<p>hey that's me!!! lol... my handwriting is horrible</p>
<p>I got an 11, despite my horrible penmanship.
I had the creativity essay. Mine was four paragraphs long. One paragraph on originality and discovery within the scientific field, and then another on innovation in business. I'm not sure whether I lost that one point off of my penmanship, or my lack of a concluding sentence, either seems possible. Hopefully, when they release more details about the scores, there will be some canned reader reponses to go along with the essay grades. I don't expect personalized ones, but it would be nice to know where I went wrong.</p>
<p>Maybe the review books are horribly wrong about what kind of essays ETS is looking for then. I read too that we are supposed to write formulaic essays with one intro, three body paragraphs, and one conclusion, replete with examples but not too much development (due to time constraints). However I write in the nearly opposite way and could not bring myself to write in the way suggested. So for my essay, I had one long intro, one really well developed (read: long) example, and a slightly shorter example, at which point I ran out of time. For that I received an 11. Perhaps with a conclusion I could have received a 12. But I was surprised at my score since I did not follow the formula at all.</p>
<p>Dude, if you read any of the CB information about the essay they say that formulaic writing will not be rewarded. What crappy review books did you use or see? Tell us so we know which ones not to buy.</p>
<p>Barrons and Kaplan. Friends who took PR and Kaplan's review courses also claimed that they were made to write formulaic essays in preparation.</p>
<p>I got a 12, and had a 4 paragraph. Trick is all in the structure, outline exactly what you are gonna say in the opening and closing and stick to it. My handwriting was easily legible... i tried to write slowly.</p>
<p>They were not made to write formulaic essays (at least as far as my experience with PR goes), they were made to write structured essays, which is a different thing. While the difference might not seem apparent, it does exist.</p>
<p>I took a PR SAT course and received 11s and 12s on the essays while receiving a 9 on the actual essay. I wrote in the same manner as I did on the practice essays, so maybe PR is a bit off? I barely broke 700 in the writing because of my my essay score.</p>
<p>i did kaplan, we were made to write formulaic essays so i did that- got 12s on the essays in the class. did the same thing on the real SAT, got a 7.</p>
<p>11, 4 paragraphs, my conclusion was kind of weak. For what it's worth, I didn't directly answer the question (majority rule blah blah blah), I said it depends on the situation and leaders.</p>
<p>I took a couple practice tests and never wrote a practice essay, just the same style I use to write English essays.</p>
<p>My Kaplan SATII writing book doen't seem to support the formulaic essays. Most of their samples only use one well developed example.</p>
<p>Seems I have a few corroborating stories for my theory...</p>
<p>12, i wrote 5 paragraphs
the majority rule one was really easy</p>
<p>looks like kaplan and pr pretty much hosed you.</p>
<p>I wrote a 4 paragraph essay. Intro, first example, second example, 3 line conclusion.</p>
<p>Got an 11.</p>
<p>I got a 12, but had like 3.5 paragraphs. I had a pretty solid intro, one historical support, one personal anecdote, but then i started running out of time so i quickly scribbled a conclusion that was like one sentence long. I don't know, essay writing is kind of my strong point and I hadn't practiced any SAT essay before so I don't really know what my review book said about it.</p>
<p>Mine was unfinished. The last and most uber sentence of them all was not uber at all, because it was halfway done. I got 11.</p>
<p>Four paragraphs. Two examples. One really good example paragraph. Second paragraph was shorter and not as good due to time limits. Conclusion was fairly solid.</p>