<p>After taking three shots, I've got 2260 on the SAT.
Yeah, that's decent, but one thing that concerns me is that my Writing score is a tad bit low:</p>
<p>790 Reading
800 Math
670 Writing (Essay: 7, MC: 71)</p>
<p>Do you think having a low Writing score would look bad?
Should I retake?</p>
<p>I hear many schools do not care as much about the writing section, though their attitude has been changing. Don’t take my word for it.</p>
<p>Yeah, that writing score is a pretty big in discrepancy. If you’ve signed up for the December SAT, I suggest you work hard for a writing score comparable to your others. If not, well, its kind of too late to do anything about it.</p>
<p>Are you ESL by any chance?</p>
<p>If you look at the Common Data Set for a particular school, it will tell you if the school takes the writing section into account. </p>
<p>In addition, you may be able to demonstrate writing skills in other ways, such as good grades in English classes. </p>
<p>If you do retake, focus on the essay section. It is quite formulaic (and different from real college writing) and if you structure your essay properly, you can go up, no matter what your content is. Make sure that you have a thesis statement at the end of the introduction; start your body paragraphs with topic sentences related to your thesis; use transition words at the start of your body paragraphs; and start your conclusion with a restatement in different words of your thesis.</p>
<p>I came over to U.S. 3 years ago, and English is my second language.
I generally do well in my IB English class, but I do tend to write slowly.</p>
<p>wow, I’m in the same position (800/800/720)!</p>
<p>What I have found is, don’t worry about it. You have a 1590, and a lot of schools don’t look at the writing. Some look at it just to make sure it isn’t abominably low. If you think you can do better, try in December, if a 670 is the best you can possibly do, then focus on essays.</p>
<p>EXACT same position
SAT 1st attempt:
M 770 CR 640 W 680
SAT 2nd attempt:
M 750 CR 780 W 660 — Yes, I know, a 140 point jump in CR (crazy eh?)</p>
<p>So Super-score is (770/780/680)
… and until now I didn’t think it would be a problem.</p>
<p>Now I’m getting more worried, my English grades are my lowest technically (I get 6s consistently - I take IB) but a 6 is good… but it still is my lowest (consistently)… </p>
<p>Will that create a doubt over my essay writing skills ?</p>
<p>Also, an interesting point
In my first SAT, I got a 12 on the essay. In the second, I got an 8. weeiiiird huh ?</p>
<p>Sorry for hijacking the thread.</p>
<p>Do you think having a low Writing score would look bad?
Should I retake? </p>
<p>No and maybe. Depends on where you’re appplying and what year in school you are. If you’re a junior, I’d retake it. If not, don’t worry about it. Your M and CR scores are stellar.</p>
<p>Well, the SAT writing is composed of grammar and sentence structure questions, with a bit of spelling and punctuation thrown in. U.S. schools don’t teach these mechanics aspects of English usually. Like, for Spanish (my second language at school) at least, I learned a lot about grammar and all that fun stuff. I’ve never had a single English teacher talk about past participles and gerunds and whatnot.</p>
<p>I’m not completely coherent right now (just woke up actually), but what I’m trying to say is that SAT writing is the least “taught” subject-- reading comprehension and math, to an extent, are “taught” at school. Proper grammar, no. Most teachers don’t even care about grammar, unless its completely terrible; same thing goes for spelling. </p>
<p>You have to pretty much go out and learn it on your own. I recommend the Elements of Style by E B White-- its an excellent little book. I used that and my Spanish grammar notes to study for the Writing section. I went up from a 680 to a 800. (I also learned how to diagram sentences, but I doubt you’d want to do that)</p>
<p>I got the opposite score to yours. I think writing is far more easier than reading. What you need to do is to do enough practice questions(real sat, oc, og, mcgrill, princeton) and see what kinds of questions you got wrong.</p>