<p>I got a 12 and I take AP Lang. I can't say that the class helped me though, I'm just a naturally gifted writer. I get 8's on all of our practice AP essays, not from practice but from sheer aptitude.</p>
<p>The SAT essay is so formulaic. If you know the system, you can beat it. You don't have to be a good writer to get a 12.</p>
<p>That's what I hate about the SAT's. <em>shakes fist at ETS</em></p>
<p>Troo dat, Troo dat. I hope more colleges would realize this about the SAT and lessen their weighting of importance on it. It's the time limit that gets me sometimes on those AP exams, so I have usually been scoring 7's and 8's on the old ones, though I did get one 9 once (it was the pink flamingo one from last year that everyone hated so much, I just wrote crap and it happened to be deep--its from reading all that Vonnegut I tell you!!!)</p>
<p>Speaking of Vonnegut, I've been wanting to read Slaughterhouse-Five for a while now.... thanks for reminding me!</p>
<p>Awesome book if you're into the dark satire type of stuff, and I will take the risk and say it just might be his best (Cat's Cradle or this one, its a coin toss)</p>
<p>what really ticked me off is that I got a 70 on the non-essay section, so if it weren't for the essay i'd have gotten a 700 instead of a measly 640..<em>sigh</em></p>
<p>aaaah Sibelius, don't worry about, have a beer, it's on me.</p>
<p>The SAT essay is really quite formulaic. But hey, if you can get a structure down and get a 11 or 12 with it...no complaints, right? </p>
<p>I prepared for the SAT essay by reading all the essays in the Blue Book that scored 5's and 6's . I decided which one was my favorite -- the one that responded to the question "Can deceit be justified" by using the examples of Jay Gatsby and the Civil War -- and followed its structure in every practice essay I wrote. After writing 3 practice essays, I decided I wouldn't be nervous above planning out my essay on the big day -- I already knew I would have two examples -- with one example taking up two paragraphs, and a "lesser" example right before the conclusion that would complement the first.</p>
<p>To polish up a bit -- to cover all the bases, if you will -- I went on to Wikipedia the night before the test to look at the essay topics from previous examinations. I took 2 minutes to think of 2 or 3 examples for each topic (I skipped about half of them). This got me in shape for the following morning, as I wasn't worried that I wouldn't be able to think of appropriate examples for my essay. </p>
<p>23 minutes for the draft. Quick read-through of the intro and conclusion and a few corrections later, I was done! Presto!</p>
<p>the SAT is formulaic that's why even writers like me (who are not great gifted writers and will never claim to be so) can get a 12. </p>
<p>I take AP Lang too! Though I can't attribute any of the improvement in my writing to that stupid class (just love that class don't I? :))</p>
<p>wbapwo,
According to the stats that folks posted based on their scores on the Jan. SAT, an 80/10 essay was an 800. I haven't seen many 80 MCs, so congrats!</p>
<p>From looking at the past two rounds of tests, it seems that if one scores in the 70s on the MC, a 9 on the essay will not drop your score below (MC*10), and higher may give you a few more points, but not a huge bump.</p>
<p>I got a 76 MC and 12 essay and that gave me an 800 but let me just say that the Writing section of the SAT is a huge joke. ANYONE can master it. After a bunch of practice tests with the Blue Book, you get a pretty good feel for what kind of questions they ask you. For example, misplaced modifiers, redundancy, etc. etc. Just make sure you go back to the ones you got wrong and classify and study up on those topics.</p>
<p>Sorry to bump this up but I haven't been on here since I posted the original thread. So is a 9 really bad? I can't even imagine not getting a perfect score because in my workshop I'd be the only one to get a 6 each time (out of 6) and I am in AP English (only one with an A in my class) etc etc. Oh well, I'll probably take the SAT again in like October. Damn my writing score sucked. It depresses me, in fact, lol.</p>