Need help with the SAT Essay

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>I am sick of hearing and reading about the b.s. that's repeated constantly about the SAT essays. "You need to pick a side", "you need to develop your ideas", "you need to vary your word choice", etc. I know that. I, like many other test takers, am not an idiot. I know how essays work; I've been writing them through my whole educational career, and I've studied how to write essays specifically for the SAT.</p>

<p>Despite my research, I have yet to find anything that has truly helped my SAT essay writing. I've taken the SAT two times, and I received an 8 and a 9 for an essay score for the two tests respectively. I've isolated the cause of my downfall, or rather, the "causes" of my downfall: I can't think of good examples, and I can't think of them fast enough. The examples I use are usually just personal examples that I have to make up on the spot.</p>

<p>So how do you do it? How do people who score twelves come up with such great examples so fast? No book, person, or website has ever told me. Can someone please help?</p>

2

<p>History class, english class, movies.</p>

3

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/645763-how-write-12-essay-just-10-days.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/645763-how-write-12-essay-just-10-days.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>Go to NY Times and find a few heart-touching stories. Remember the details. (Or you can use Literature, History, Personal examples, etc.)</p>

<p>Write a few sentences (3-4) for the intros to each story. Make sure the sentences are flexible enough to be easily modified for different prompts. Include a lot of details to make it seem like you know what you’re talking about.</p>

<p>Practice writing essays with the examples and their intros. After writing a few essays, examples should be honed pretty well.</p>

<p>Use the examples on the test. Because the prompts are usually pretty open ended and similar to each other, at least a few of your examples should work. (I’ve used the same two examples for the last 6 practice tests)</p>

<p>It works for me.</p>