<p>My daughter is weakest in writing and needs to use this summer to improve. I'd like to hear from others what books, methods, tutors and prep courses helped you to improve your writing score and how you used that to improve.</p>
<p>Mae</p>
<p>Writing is the easiest section in which to improve, so she should be able to pull that score up rather quickly!</p>
<p>I work for a test preparation company, so I can’t recommend books, but I can suggest some strategies for her.</p>
<p>The Official SAT Study Guide (aka the blue book), published by the makers of the test, is essential to her studies, no matter which company or books she goes with. It is the only book with real test questions and for this reason, it is invaluable. She should begin with the multiple choice grammar sections. There are roughly 20 grammar errors that the SAT tests, such as pronoun choice (I vs. me), subject and verb agreement (the number of cases has/have increased), and irregular verbs (the water had rose/risen ten feet). Learning to recognize these errors will increase her pace and confidence. I think she should take practice sections from the blue book and then score them. For all questions that she misses or guesses on, she needs to review them and study why she missed them. These patterns appear over and over. A book or class will help her more quickly recognize these errors, but she can certainly find them on her own, too, and there is a certain value in this kind of self-discovery. I’ve included a link below to a previous thread where I identify more of the errors.</p>
<p>For the essay, she should study the self-help portion of the blue book, including examples of scored essays. She should concentrate on writing a 4-paragraph essay (intro, 2 supporting paragraphs, and conclusion) in which the supporting paragraphs are fully developed and explain how they prove her thesis. Because this is a timed essay, the introduction does not need to be very long; the bulk of her writing should be the supporting paragraphs. Essays that include transitions, varied sentence structure, and a few vocab words tend to receive the highest scores. </p>
<p>Good luck! Feel free to email me if you have specific questions.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1136968-grammar-websites.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1136968-grammar-websites.html</a></p>