<p>I've heard from a few friends that essay scorers are not actually allowed to penalize essays for information that isn't factual. I mean, obviously a scorer wouldn't appreciate someone talking about Christopher Columbus' trip to the moon, but if it's something small would it be a big deal? Such as a made up date or something else? i.e. If you are halfway through a book, but it would be a good example, so you make a conjecture at what the ending will be, and you are wrong, will you be penalized? I used factual info on my essay, but I'm just wondering.</p>
<p>You can rest assured that bending history and literature will have no negative effects on your score. Nothing outrageous of course (unless it’s obscure). I made up Beethoven’s life history in my essay to fit my thesis, and I got a 12.</p>
<p>Technically speaking, essay scorers could not penalize your essay even if you wrote about Christopher Columbus’ trip to the moon. Just like how technically a native Spanish speaker’s 800 on SAT II Spanish technically should have the same weight as a non-native’s score.</p>
<p>In other words, technically yes, but the graders are only human! If you start talking about well-known facets of history, or worse, literature (remember most graders ARE english teachers!!!) they may (read: will) have a negative bias towards your paper.</p>
<p>So if you ARE going to make something up, make the topic something rather esoteric: Zulu myths, Chinese proverbs (actually most of the ones you read are complete BS - no Chinese person ever started a sentence with “Confucius say…”), ^Beethoven’s life, etc.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>