<p>I'm taking the SAT tomorrow, and one of the things I've been working on is writing the essay. Believe it or not I just found out early this morning that you can see your whole essay from the previous test on the college board website. Seeing as a lot of people on here are very familiar with the essay grading process, I was wondering if someone could point out where it could be improved to score higher. Rereading it, I think it's actually pretty good. I think the main downfall could be that I have 2 examples instead of 3 and didn't use up the whole 2 pages (both of which I've heard are very important). Also, I'm wondering if my thesis was clear and concise enough for what they expect? And do you think I summarized too much rather than analyzed in my examples or is that just me?</p>
<p>Here's the essay:</p>
<p>Photo</a> Album - Imgur</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Here are a few things some people do not know about the SAT essay grading process:</p>
<p>Each grader is only given 3 minutes to grade an essay, then it is directly given to another grader who is given the same 3 minutes to make a score. </p>
<p>First impression and the overall organization & eloquence are the most important parts of your essay. A strong, clear, and concise thesis is a must. As well as very strong supporting details and examples. The whole “you must fill up 2 pages” is completely false considering the fact that most graders will not read a 2 page essay word for word.</p>
<p>To achieve a 12 you will need the following things:</p>
<ol>
<li>A very clear and insightful purpose of your essay</li>
<li>Well organized and fully developed, with excellent supporting materials for organization and development</li>
<li>Varied and engaging sentence structure</li>
<li>Effective word choice</li>
<li>Error-free grammar and usage</li>
<li>Clear and consistent competence, few errors.</li>
</ol>
<p>@Warrent Ok thanks, but those are somewhat abstract concepts. It would really help me connect them to my writing if you (or someone) could specifically say which parts of those things I was not achieving in my essay and where.</p>
<p>well i find it extremely hard to read so maybe if you were to type it yourself then people would be able to help.</p>
<p>@usnfilms, yeah my handwriting is pretty poor (especially when rushed) I make no excuses for that. I’ll have to pay extra attention on the test tomorrow to try and be neat in order to avoid getting a grader who can’t read it.</p>
<p>Unfortunately I don’t have too much time to type it up tonight, but if anyone happens to be able to read it I’d appreciate the comments.</p>
<p>Get better handwriting. ASAP.</p>