<p>I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with examples for essay questions. Does anyone know any tricks? </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Use what you’re interested in. For I use actors, books I’ve recently read, tv shows anything that you think can be related to the topic can be used. They read the newspaper or watching the news can give you good examples (personally I haven’t tried that).</p>
<p>Hey Mhutchins,
Thinking of essay examples quickly is a skill you can build with practice. To help you along, though, narrow your pool of potential topics. As an example try the following:</p>
<p>You have 15 seconds; list everything you can think of that’s white. </p>
<p>When you’re done, look below</p>
<p>Now, take 15 seconds and list everything you can think of that’s in a refrigerator that’s white. </p>
<p>If you’re like most people, your list for the second exercise is almost as large or even larger than your list for the first exercise, even though you went from having the entire universe at your disposal to just having the inside of a fridge. Having fewer options sometimes makes things easier. </p>
<p>Knowing this fact, choose three subjects you know something about, such as sports, US History, and high school social dynamics, then limit your options to those three subjects. So don’t think, “what’s an example of a time when success was disastrous?” Think instead “what’s an example from sports or history when success was disastrous?” You’ll do better. </p>
<p>Also, practice (you’ll hear this advice a lot, I bet). Every day, pick an essay topic - search online for SAT essay topics - and take two to three minutes to think of two examples for each. The more you practice, the quicker you’ll think of examples. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>a friend of mine told me the following advice: Abraham Lincoln can be used on nearly all essays.</p>
<p>It’s kind of true if you think about, he did basically everything an essay could want.</p>
<p>If you apply that idea to the essay your given, im sure that you’d come up with something!</p>
<p>I agree with all the advice above. Also, I advise you to go to the sticky Best Of SAT Prep and visit the Writing Section. There, you can find the How To Write A 12 Essay In Just 10 Steps thread. Read it, it’s really good and gives good ideas for essay topics.
I, myself, find that Galileo/Copernicus/Ptolemy, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and a personal (can be made-up) anecdote can be used for almost any prompt. 
Good luck!</p>
<p>Mhutchins,</p>
<p>The above advice is great. Also, I suggest you try what I did - just write a laundry list of examples for every single possible essay topic (believe me there aren’t as many as you think [creativity, love, loyalty, justice, power, strength, friendship, reality, technology, etc. just to name some]). Think of 3 examples for each category and then write a mock body paragraph; I did this on the computer so it was a faster less annoying process (I hate writing in real life with pen and paper). Then go over this list and you’ll really be fine. You’ll also notice that certain examples are very versatile and can satisfy multiple essay topics, and the sooner you learn to “mold” or “shape” these topics, the better your essay writing will become, and the higher you’ll score. Hope I helped, good luck :)!</p>
<p>~Aceventura74</p>
<p>I have a really weird question…</p>
<p>SO I haven’t read a lot of “classics”… BUt I read a lot of teen books. Can those be examples? (I’m asking this because everytime I read a “12” essay they always have examples from classics)</p>
<p>use sparknotes, it’ll help you with classics.</p>
<p>Good idea ^ thanks (:</p>
<p>Dorkyelmo, I’d stay away from the Twilight type novels. Readers are instructed not to pass judgement on your examples, but they are English teachers who have likely taught literature for years and it’s unlikely they would qualify teen novels as literature. If you are stuck, though, rename the novel, say it’s by a respected author, and take out the campy stuff. For example, rename Twilight “Dark of the Day,” claim it’s by Toni Morrison, and remove any reference to vampires. It becomes a much better example.</p>
<p>I use Helen Keller and Thomas Edison as examples often. I also cite the American Revolution and the Great Gatsby if I can fit them into the question. I rarely use an example that I didn’t already think about before the test started. My old AP English teacher taught me that trick—she said the literature essay question could be answered with any novel if you adapted it correctly.</p>
<p>I’ve also been known to make up an example that I “read” in the New Yorker when the question didn’t support classic examples like the ones above.</p>
<p>SATwriter:</p>
<p>HAHA. So today, this girl named Becka. Falls in love with this abnormal human-like features creature.</p>
<p>But I was talking more about Meg Cabot…</p>