<p>who used personal examples (nothing historical, literary, etc.) on the march or may SAT and how many did you use? what score did you get?</p>
<p>1 real
2 made up</p>
<p>score 9</p>
<p>1 personal-volunteering
1 historical-colonial era
9</p>
<p>2 personal</p>
<p>9</p>
<p>1- Office Space (yes, the movie with the stapler guy)
2- Willy Loman- Death of a Salesman
3- Personal experience doing hospital volunteer work
4- My grandfather's experience working 80 hours a week and being unable to see my father's little-league games</p>
<p>I scored a 12</p>
<p>hahah madskier, office space rocks. and so do you for using it in the essay.</p>
<p>"PC Load letter? what the **** does that mean?!?"</p>
<p>madskier is proof that these graders want interesting examples to keep them awake while grading the essays, and not the boooring historical examples everyone else uses :)</p>
<p>I used two personal examples and then some general stuff (which I think had no purpose, now that I think about it).</p>
<p>I got an 8.</p>
<p>Maybe this is beacuse I sounded self-righteous, talking about volunteering as a tutor/camp counselor for inner-city children... lol. (that was just 1 of my examples)</p>
<p>It's been shown in a previous report from CB itself that essays using historical and/or literary examples generally score slightly higher than essays using other types of examples (such as personal). None of the essays here using solely personal examples earned higher than a 9 (madskier's uses a movie and a literary example as well), so this may seem to validate the trend.</p>
<p>madskier, how did you manage to give 4 examples within the page limit provided? I am curious as to how you elaborated enough to make each example worthwhile while still keeping the essay within the limit and within the time frame, thanks.</p>
<p>1-Bill Gates
2-Personal (me on spring break)
3-Personal (my "cousin" taking a year off after college)</p>
<p>got a dissapointing 10.</p>
<p>I disagree. My latin teacher is an essay grader for the SATs and he says that he doesn't think enough students use personal examples. He says he'd rather see the student apply the topic to his or her own life than see the same over-used examples all the time. I would use personal examples in addition to historical/literary though. Take me for example. Half of my essay was King Arthur and the other half was about a friend of mine. Got an 11.</p>
<p>4 paragraphs total
1 personal example (my grandfather)
1 quote, that I then expanded to a personal example becuase I only had 3 sentences.</p>
<p>Got a 12.</p>
<p>Hi Godot--</p>
<p>Can you tell me where I can get a copy of that report? I couldn't find it on collegeboard.com. Also, from a data-interpretation standpoint, couldn't it also be that people who know historical examples are often more educated, and therefore write better? In other words, I'm suggesting that instead of A causing B, A and B might both be effects of C.</p>
<p>Mike</p>
<p>My friend got a 1550 on the May SAT and he scored 11 on his essay (600 W). He used 1 historical example, 1 literature example, and 1 personal example.</p>
<p>Mike,</p>
<p>I think the link is <a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/research/abstract/3840.html?store=200887%5B/url%5D">http://www.collegeboard.com/research/abstract/3840.html?store=200887</a>. Unfortunately, the report is not free; you have to buy it.</p>
<p>The title of the report is Factors in Performance on Brief, Impromptu Essay Examinations.</p>
<p>Sorry jksbond 007 about not getting back to repost. My essay was constructed with an introduction paragraph in which I used the thesis "Although work is a major component of one's life, one should depend on personal goals and ambitions to dictate one's social life. In my next paragraph I mentioned that work is what you make of it. I mentioned how Willy Loman's life was consummed in the search for success in a cold-hearted business world. I also used Peter Gibbons from Office Space (sort of as a joke) to demonstrate that happiness is more important than work. A man does not have to work to acheive well being. In my 3rd paragraph I discussed my grandfather's difficult work schedule and inability to make my father's b-ball games (true story). I also mentioned that work brings some people a level joy, for instance my volunteering experience. My concluding paragraph was incredibly short, but in my last sentence I made an anecdote on the author's remarks. I said "Although work is necessary to survive in a capitalistic world, Work does for you what you want it to do".</p>
<p>Some well-place vocab. and smooth transitions helped my score.</p>