<p>Does anyone have a list of topics that frequently appear in essay prompts? I'm starting to gather the examples I'm going to use, but thought it would be useful to be able to match them specifically to common topics to make sure I have the field covered. Thanks for your help.</p>
<p>I usually write about what I am learning in US History. For example, on my latest practice test I wrote about Robber Barons like Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, etc. I’m probably going to use this on my March SAT. I also use Indian Independence, Civil War, Martin Luther King Jr, Spanish Conquistadors, etc. What do you use?</p>
<p>I generally like using lit examples more than history. I can work the Iliad into a wide variety of prompts. I also use the Odyssey, Sophocles and Aeschylus, and a few anecdotes from Roman history. (I’m very classics-oriented, if you haven’t noticed). But what I’m looking for isn’t examples to use, but a list of types of prompts that appear often so I can make sure I have examples that will work no matter what the prompt is.</p>
<p>In every one of the practice SAT (not PSAT) and real SAT essays I’ve written, I’ve used at least one example from either To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.</p>
<p>I think I need to come up with ideas before hand as well: Today I took a practice SAT with the Princeton Review, and I didn’t think my examples were too good (the question was whether censorship is always bad), all I could come up with was a) the dark ages, b) the soviet union, and c) 1984… and I don’t think I did too good of a job relating them to my thesis 
How many “examples” do you guys have ahead of time? I think I read a thread that suggested that you needed 24 -</p>
<p>I only use two examples. I feel its better that I write 2 good, in depth examples as opposed to 3 mediocre examples. I also do plan for maybe 30 seconds. I just think about 2 topics that would work really well.</p>
<p>I use two examples also. Through practice essays I found the Great Gatsby to be very flexible. But on the actual exam, I had to come up with two completely new examples (embellished) from history.</p>