<p>Can you still score a 12 if you use a well-explained example from a book apart from the literature canon? (e.g. novels besides Jane Eyre, Huck Finn...)</p>
<p>I’m not sure about a 12, but I used books such as Mao’s Last Dancer and My Name is Asher Lev, and I scored an 11. I don’t think these books would generally be considered literature, but they are not terrible examples either.</p>
<p>Of course! Just be articulate when describing your example. Its usually convenient to include examples from a novel (any… does not have to be essential to the literary cult), history, and a personal experience. If you do 2 or all of these, you are on the right track for a 12.</p>
<p>So… does this mean I can use the Princess Diaries?</p>
<p>How important is the validity of the “facts” you are presenting in the essay? If the reader hasn’t read Mao’s Last Dancer, couldn’t you make up the entire plot and give evidence to perfectly support your topic? </p>
<p>Also, if the topic was “Is compromise the best way to resolve a conflict?” and you respond by talking about the New York Compromise of 1841 rather than the Missouri Compromise of 1820, is there any chance of being penalized?</p>
<p>You have to remember that the essays graders have 30-60 seconds to grade your essay and I mountain of essays yet to grade. They aren’t going to fact-check. They don’t really care. They just want to see you have good reasoning (though really that barely matters), good prose, good vocab and a well-structured essay. I used two very obscure examples on my last essay, one about current events another about baseball and got an 11. So don’t worry about accuracy or “legit” examples. You’ll write a better essay if you’re writing about a book you loved rather than some classic you looked up on Sparknotes the night before.</p>
<p>Have you ever read Harry Potter?</p>
<p>Let’s say the prompt is: are there things that are more important than education?</p>
<p>My first thought might be that Harry must leave Hogwarts in order to defeat the dark lord or whatever…</p>
<p>But say I don’t want to use this example because it is overwhelmingly elementary and unsophisticated…</p>
<p>Why don’t I just write about Alexander Leon’s First Impressions, a book about a boy who goes to boarding school and must eventually escape because there is an assassin after him… or one of the teachers is a serial killer and wants to kill him or something like that… so this boy has to escape school in order to avoid jeopardizing his safety. There you go, just made up a whole book and author by elaborating on Harry Potter just a bit :)</p>
<p>This is all I could think of in 20 seconds, of course during the actual essay this example might still sound silly… just be a little creative. Anything’s better than leaving the page blank.</p>
<p>P.S. this is only if you prefer not to write about HP. A lot of people still score high by writing about HP.</p>
<p>I’m not sure…I would advise against making up a plot or even changing a few facts. The books I chose may not have fit the prompt entirely, but I didn’t change any of the facts. I would suggest that you come up with a few very versatile examples that can fit a variety of prompts. I basically prepared a list of examples that would be good choices for an SAT essay beforehand, and then I practiced answering multiple SAT prompts using the examples from my list. So, it wasn’t difficult at all to use the same examples for the actual SAT.</p>
<p>I agree that you should use books that you loved rather than classics. Although, I have recently developed a liking for quite a few classics, so if you happen to love a classic, then by all means use it.</p>
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<p>Would you mind posting your personal list of examples?</p>