March 2012 SAT I Writing Thread

<p>every two points off on essay willusually cost you about 30 points</p>

<p>Everyone with scores/curves questions should be smacked in the face with a copy of this:
<a href=“http://www.erikthered.com/tutor/SAT-Released-Test-Curves.pdf[/url]”>http://www.erikthered.com/tutor/SAT-Released-Test-Curves.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>do you think the curve will fall on the lower end? like, not on the green part, but on the lower yellow part. -1=78, -2=75…etc?</p>

<p>@perfect36
I wouldn’t be surprised if the curve is harsh. -1=77, -2=74 would seem okay for this test. I’m certainly hoping I am wrong.</p>

<p>@liamneeson
i got a 9 essay in january and got one question wrong(no omits) and got a 740. I found this writing a bit easier than b4, so i think the curve might be very harsh, even worse than what u said</p>

<p>Did any of y’all have an error in regards to wrong use of a word?</p>

<p>I took the Sunday test and question #29 (the last one in the spot the error section) had a blatant misuse of a word. It said “Something blah blah blah insures that this won’t happen…”</p>

<p>The word insure is obviously wrong, it was ensure. The only reason I marked this is because I’ve heard people from the January test who also said they missed a question that also had the wrong use of a word… just confirming if this is possible or not? I know for a fact you couldn’t use insure in that context…</p>

<p>for Salt Lake blah blah, producing evocative blah blah</p>

<p>Was the error “producing” or was there no error?</p>

<p>Msecretsv</p>

<p>I’ll just have to disagree. Maybe you would want to study parallel “theory” some more.</p>

<p>can someone help me out on the question where it went something like…
blah girl taking photos of herself in settings resembling “those of” old movies repelled her to fame.
i circled those of with the mindset that it should really be “those in” but was really confused by the word choice of “repelled” instead of “propelled.” help?
also, if you didnt have this question, thank god, because i had three writing sections (4 with the essay) and one was experimental, im praying that this question was in the exp section. thanks!</p>

<p>@jtcsmash</p>

<p>Well I don’t remember the question itself, but it would be grammatically correct to say “those of” because it is just referring back to “settings”.</p>

<p>You could replace the word “those” with “settings” to get the same sentence meaning.</p>

<p>blah girl taking photos of herself in settings resembling settings of old movies… blah blah.</p>

<p>If that question really did have “repelled her” to fame, then that was a definite error. I do not think that it would be that obvious. I’m pretty sure you misread it? I did have a writing experimental as well (section 6. improv. paragraph talked about children’s books. the real writing section talked about garden-care and houses) And I do not remember a question with the phrase “repelled her to fame”</p>

<p>@jtcsmash I’m about 95% sure that the question you posed is from an experimental. I had no writing experimentals, and I do not recall anything about a girl taking pictures of herself that related to movies.</p>

<p>can someone post all the answers we discussed so far in this thread?</p>

<p>ugh! for the lipstick problem, i automatically assumed “whose” was wrong as soon as i read the word and immediately circled it as my error. i should really read the entire sentence in the future… </p>

<p>i did horrible on the essay too. even though the prompt was easy (the mistakes one), my mind went completely blank after i wrote my intro… i could not think of a way to use any of my default literary examples (scarlet letter, huck finn, of mice and men, merchant of venice, animal farm, 1984, and f451)! so i wrote about 2 crappy examples that only totaled maybe 1.3 pages. anticipating a 6/12…</p>

<p>What is the question to the “variety of” answer choice? thanks</p>

<p>it was a question that tested redundancy. It said something like a variety of different kinds and you just had to simply it to a variety of.</p>

<p>SO what you guys write for "SHould you forget the the mistakes of the past as soon as possible?</p>

<p>I wrote about WWII.</p>

<p>…Yeah haha…i freaked out and made up three examples all saying that the guy eventually killed himself bcuz his mistakes haunted him just in different settings…there goes my 800 lol</p>

<p>I took the sunday test, my prompt was “does tradition prevent us from trying things in newer or more sensible ways”</p>

<p>This might be one of the easiest prompts ever. I was in heaven when I read that, I almost immediately began writing. My examples were Jane Eyre and FDR (hell yes for researching examples prior to test). What would you guys have written about?</p>

<p>Sunday test for me was questioning authority. I used examples of the FDA recalls and doctors advertising weight-loss scams.</p>

<p>My first two body paragraphs describe how its essential to do so (past mistakes prompt) in order to fix and build off of the errors of the past, and they were about the Treaty of Versailles and Stephen Hawking, respectively. My third paragraph warned that although its necessary, one should take caution in applying these past lessons to the present and I cited Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression.</p>