<p>I'm confused about how the two scores (of up to 6 each) when added together (up to 12 total) translates into a portion of the overall SAT score or 2400 total.</p>
<p>Clearly, it is not part of the Math score, but WHAT is it part of? And how is it calculated?</p>
<p>Thanks for your help.</p>
<p>The essay comprises about a third of the writing section. Your raw writing score is</p>
<p>2*(essay score) + (MC score)</p>
<p>Where “essay score” is the 2-12 score on the essay and MC score is the number of points scored on MC section (# correct - (# wrong)/4)). Here, the maximum possible raw score is 2*12 + 49 = 73.</p>
<p>The raw writing score is scaled to the 200-800 scale.</p>
<p>The essay is a part of the writing section. There is a conversion chart that takes your writing scaled score (out of 80) and your essay score (out of 12) to get to the writing overall score (out of 800). You don’t have to get a perfect 12 and 80 to get an 800.</p>
<p>THANK YOU.</p>
<p>I knew it must have some large bearing on the score…so improving from a 6 to a 12 could “buy” you, what? 100 points overall? or more?</p>
<p>it’s part of your Writing Score… I don’t know how they calculate it but it doesn’t count THAT much… you can get a 0 and get all the MCs right and get 680</p>
<p>This is part of the raw score conversion chart (from Princeton Review’s “11 Practice Tests for the SAT”):</p>
<p>Raw Score ----- Scaled Score
73--------------800
70--------------770-800
60--------------700-740
50--------------620-660
40--------------550-590
30--------------470-510
20--------------390-430
10--------------310-350
0---------------210-250
-3--------------200-220</p>
<p>So increasing an essay score by 6 will increase your raw score by 12, which could net an 80-100 pt increase.</p>
<p>The detail I looked for but COULD NOT FIND! I sooooo appreciate your help.</p>
<p>DD got flustered her first time round and “froze” on the essay. She got a 21++ overall, but both graders gave her “3’s” on the essay…which she says was well deserved as she rambled and only filled MAYBE two-thirds of one page…nearly incoherent. :-(</p>
<p>This time, she used the (most excellent) “12 essay in 10 days” and bumped that against the collection of historic prompts, and did a full two-page essay of which she was proud. </p>
<p>I wondered how much this effort might have earned her, and, I think she will think a potential 80-100 point jump worth the effort. If nothing else, she “knew” she could have done better, and now she has proven it to herself.</p>
<p>Additionally, she had extra time in all the sections to check her work; something that she DID NOT have the first time she took the SAT. Hopefully, she may pick up a few points here and there as well.</p>
<p>Thanks again for your prompt (bad SAT humor) and accurate responses.</p>
<p>Essay is about 30% of writing section, meaning 10% of test, although the scoring is complex, as I’m sure you know.</p>