<p>I knew it was gonna be horrible right after I walked out of the test center... I'm usually fairly solid in writing my essays but this is just ridiculous. At least I'm only a junior. Anybody have any tips on how they write so well (preferably maintaining coherence and structure)?</p>
<p>I got an 11. Is it the higher the number, the wrost the score is or is it the lower the number the better it is? o_O</p>
<p>^ lol. You want the higher score. An 11/12 is very good (I'm biased, it's what I got :) )!</p>
<p>Anyway, youngboi, writing style is hard to teach, per se. I would say reading a lot and writing tons of practice essays would help you the most.</p>
<p>There doesn't seem to be a correlation between writing skill and ACT essay score, quite frankly. My brother, who got an A+ in AP English and a 5 on the exam got a 6 the second time on the essay. I got a 7 this October, and my teachers consider me a good writer. Both my brother and I got a 35 composite and at least a 35 in the English section. A girl I know who aced both the ACT and the SAT got an 8 on the essay, and she also writes pretty well. Need I say more? If so, I'd be happy to.</p>
<p>In conclusion, I wouldn't try to change your writing style to what they're looking for. It may adversely affect it in the long run, especially in college when you'll have to write stuff far more advanced than argumentative five-paragraph essays.</p>
<p>i got a 9/12 and i didnt even finish my conclusion. but in ap english im getting 5s on my papers...act writing is so lame. they love the transitions first, second, in conclusion which is horrible writing in my opinion</p>
<p>i got a 6 on act, but a 10 on sat only a few weeks later...yea.</p>
<p>^ nick, I also made a 5 on the AP Lit exam. I plan on majoring in Creative Writing in college. I've written poetry and short stories since I was 10.</p>
<p>Don't diss the ACT essay just because you didn't do that well on it. All you have to do is consider your audience. You're writing to ACT graders, so act like it. Don't write a dissertation, and don't write with overly flowery language and syntax. They want a cookie-cutter essay, so give it to them!</p>
<p>The ACT essay has particular requirements on their rubric to get a 12. (I got 11 on ACT essay and 11 on SAT essay). For the ACT essay they want evidence to support whatever claims you make (they give out a free booklet/miniature study guide that outlines this as well), historical facts are good, and usually easy to bring to mind, because most of us are in some sort of advanced history class; however current events and/or personal experiences work as well. You MUST anticipate the opposition's arguments to one of your claims in order to get a high score. It shows...whatever. Also, they want variety of sentence structure, decent use of upper level vocabulary, and like someone else mentioned good transitions. It's not hard...</p>
<p>I got a 12 on the essay just writing to a formula, but the thing is one of my projects in AP english was " breaking the essay bank" and determining just what that formula is that they want to see. So the first time doing it I got an 11 and then I paid close attention and revised my strategy and got the elusive 12.</p>
<p>Um, one year old thread…</p>
<p>ha i got a 6 also my first time! anyone know what a college thinks of a low writing score?</p>
<p>Colleges don’t care about the ACT essay, as in it doesn’t factor into your composite score such as the SAT.</p>
<p>I am a ESLer who came to the US 3 years ago without knowing the language; however,
I got a 8 on the essay just because I did ONE practice on the PR book,
I would recommend you all to use this book. It has really good formula , just follow it.
I would study closer this time and try to score higher, and bless you all do the same too!</p>
<p>The ACT essay graders look for some very specific elements that must be present before they’ll give you a high score.</p>
<p>It’s been a while since I took it, but I managed to get an 11 on my first and only time doing the essay by basically memorizing the feedback that ACT gave for sample essays on their website. freesoon:) basically has it down. You simply must mention some possible objection to your stance. You have to take a stance and stick to it. And if I remember correctly I skipped the planning stage of my essay and just wrote like crazy the whole time in order to bang out as long an essay as I could. I broke it into the standard five paragraphs.</p>