Making stuff up in the SAT essay, probably with caution

Test Preparation
1

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I have read some posts regarding making stuff up in the SAT essay and embellishing. I have also discovered that some colleges may look at the essay for purposes of admission, although with so many applications I don't think they would want to look through all of them; they may read the SAT essay for verification purposes. I'm just suggesting getting facts and examples in the SAT essay as accurate as possible and don't make far-fetched personal stories that may contradict your application essays. So, what are your thoughts on this issue?</p>

2

<p>well i gave the SAT three times, and the first two times, i took examples from science, history and did it the way the princeton review asks you to do it. you know, thesis –> literary example –> personal/historical example –> counter-argument (optional) –> conclusion. i followed exactly this structure for my first two SAT’s and ended up getting 9 each time.</p>

<p>however, on my third try, i decided to cook up something on the spot, and made my own structure. i thought i would be getting lesser this time, and i got 11 instead. of the three examples i used, two were personal stories. as long as universities don’t have a way to verify whatever you say, you’ll be fine. if you say “my dad works for Google” when he actually works for </p>

3

<p>I wrote 2 whole pages on my first SAT attempt and got 8 (Later when I read it again, it was off topic). On my second attempt, I wrote about a personal experience, my school, but only finished one paragraph and half my essay; I got a 9. Weird things happen at ETS.</p>

4

<p>No university would actually take the time to look at those essays. And really, it doesn’t matter.</p>

5

<p>The best essays are written by people who have something real to say and a sense of purpose for saying it. Very good writers may get a kick out of writing a fictitious essay and end up writing something rather good.</p>

<p>In my opinion, there are five pertinent points related to a fictional essay.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Your essay is being graded based on criteria related to your ability to write. Your grades in history, political science, biology, psychology etc. will be reflected in the subject area tests. Your essay reader is not likely to be proficient in those areas and will not have the time to fact-check your writing. Nor would they want to. Consider that one person’s fact is another person’s fallacy. Do the Federalist Papers represent the intentions of the framers of the Constitution? Should we take them as our guide today when we deal with Constitutional issues? The SAT essay graders don’t desire to deal with issues like that for all 1.5 million different essays they’ll read each year, and couldn’t if they did. Experienced essay readers will know there is a strong possibility that your essay evidence is fake, but they are unlikely to make an issue of it. </p></li>
<li><p>What essay readers WILL be looking for is your understanding of the requirements of a good essay. First, they will be looking for your understanding and insight into the issues raised by the essay prompt. Can you analyze those issues? Are your points and sub-points significant and relevant, or are they superficial, obvious and elementary? You can fake the evidence, but you can’t fake the analysis. You have to think to do analysis. This involves two things. The first is logic. Logic is logic. It is objective. (If you haven’t learned it already, you should know that the rules of formal logic are about HOW you think about propositions, not about whether or not those propositions are actually true.) The second is you, your experience and understanding of the world and the different kinds of issues and people in it. Does your awareness extend beyond yourself to the larger world around you? The answer to that will show in your analysis.</p></li>
<li><p>Your analysis leads to your major points and sub-points. Your evidence and explanation of those points come next. Here again, the reader is looking for the quality of your thinking. Are the explanations of your ideas clear and complete? Is your evidence adequate? Again, adequate doesn’t mean factual. It means relevant, significant, tied logically to the conclusions you intended the evidence to support. IF the evidence were true, would it be good evidence, logically presented?</p></li>
<li><p>After the analysis of the issues and the development of your points and evidence, comes the organization, structure and coherence of your writing. Actually, the three elements cited are all aspects of the same thing. They make your writing flow smoothly and logically through your points as the essay proceeds. Introductions, conclusions, transitions, summaries, proportion (the amount of time you spend on each point according to its importance) and unity (everything is related and fits into a single clear idea) are all important here.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, the reader checks your writing style. Word choice, sentence structure, grammar and usage, and punctuation are all relevant here. The higher the score, the more relevant they become, but perfection is not required even in a 12 essay. You are writing a first draft, after all.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I hope you can see that factual evidence is not really a requirement for executing a high quality essay. The CB and your reader know that, and can evaluate the essay whether the evidence is true or not.</p>