Hi everyone, I was just looking through some of the previous SAT writing prompts and I found that a lot of them were ones that I couldn’t come up with a definitive yes or no answer to. Is it okay to answer a prompt as “it depends” with a couple examples on either side, or will that make it look like you were too lazy to come up with one answer? Also for those who did answer as “I don’t know” or “It depends,” did you get a high score?
It’s not about your opinion–it’s about picking a side and supporting it reasonably well. You have to pick a side, though. I advise you to start with your examples. If the prompt asks “is the effort more important than the accomplishment” and your examples are people with great accomplishments, you pick “no” and write about how important their accomplishments were, for example.
OF COURSE the reality is somewhere in the middle, but this is a 25-minute timed essay. Don’t over-think it.
The sat essay is not the place to do such thinking. Pick a side, write a few good arguments, get a good grade, end of the story. In your classes or your personal intellectual pursuits take risks and explore but why mess up with a 20min standardized test???