<p>GAH!
When it comes down to essays, I think my writing speed is slower than Paris Hilton's learning ability.
I attempted my very first SAT essay last night and I tried to make it in time but I failed to do so. I ended up finishing my essay more than an hour later.
It's not that I write with my utmost care or anything, but I just can't think fast enough to organize my essay in less than 2 minutes. And I have a really bad habit of revising my essay every 2 minutes as I write through paragraphs. I'd say the quality of my essay is above average but not superior.
Can you guys give me some tips on how to write a good quality essay really fast?</p>
<p>PS: I use Intro-Ex1-Ex2-Conclusion structure. Is this good enough for top marks?</p>
<p>Practice, practice practice, practice some more. After 20 essays of practice, you will have a template in your head for the organization, you no longer need to think how to organize your thoughts.</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm planning to write one essay per day during Christmas break. And I need to get SAT I out of my way as soon as possible. It's becoming a pain in the butt..and Narcissa our school works in two-semester system so I have English next semester.
Oh and how do you not use your brain when you're trying to write a persuasive essay? I thought in order to write an effective essay, I needed to think of ways to persuade the reader...</p>
<p>just start writing immediately and use the five paragraph essay formula. I got 11, 12 that way. The time I got 8 I actually stopped to plan my essay, so yep.</p>
<p>a lot of times, its easier to just start writing and formulate ideas as you go....one advice i got was that you could use the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" on almost every topic, so if you know that book you can apply it to most topics one way or another</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Chose a couple of examples that you are going to use for every single essay that you write! A couple books (famous, if possible), a historical figure (i never got the chance to use it for real), and a personal experience (last resort). My list was Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Dickens' Great Expectations, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the Bible (i'm religious, and the essay was so easy for me because i could always use the Bible for examples... lol...), Fidel Castro, and my trip to New Orleans. Trust me when i say this- you can always force any book into any essay topic. Maybe think for like 2 min on which fits the best. Also Sat graders don't take points off for validity. My friend just used philosophers for every essay- and wrote wrong things about them, but still got 11. </p></li>
<li><p>Sound smart! Use vocab words! There was research done that showed the direct correlation between usage of high level vocabulary and 12s on essays. This method worked for me! My first essay, I didn't write a conclusion paragraph cuz i ran out of time and my thesis was 6 words long. But, I got a 12!! Because i used ridiculously high level words. (The most recent essay, i got an 11 and i wrote a full 2 pages and i guess not enough vocab haha...)</p></li>
<li><p>Don't care about the essay... Who cares? At least for me I don't have to care anymore because im done with SAT! :P Just kidding. But really. Because I got an 11 instead of a 12 on my essay, my score dropped a mere 10 points. Learn your grammar rules for MC section instead, like others have suggested. Trust me! If you are aiming for mid to high 700s or whatever, essay doesn't even matter that much. In some scales, not all, you can even get an 800 by getting only a 9 on your essay. -____-</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Anyway, yeah thats my two cents. I'm a little nuts write now because I got my SAT score 10 min ago! =) Time to go to school now.. Screw this retarded weather.</p>
<p>To answer your question... Well at least i used the format intro, ex1, ex2, conclusion, and it worked for me. However, it's more about writing style, which is something you cannot really gain by practicing. Practicing the essay is merely so you can get a feel for what the time limit is like. Focus on MC questions!</p>
<p>Oh yeah and btw... The poster above says literary examples are overrated? Well if you wanna risk it, there is an alternate method haha. </p>
<p>You can completely make up personal experiences!!! Hahahah i think someone should try that and post some advice on that. It theoretically should work if you are a decent writer and you can create very emotional personal experiences. You would need to make very specific lies up (make a clear picture) and make sure that your lying logic doesn't contradict anywhere.</p>
<p>play minesweeper as fast as possible until your wrists are on the verge of breaking. that should improve flexibility and increase writing speed :P</p>
<p>take no more than a minute reading the prompt. As soon as you finished start writing and don't stop until the proctor calls time. </p>
<p>Dont' stress about using correct grammar and profficient syntax, even though they do help your score. You main goal is two have a flowing structure and a strong argument.</p>
<p>I'd recommend doing sample essays to determine what strategy you are most comfortable with. For example, I remember that when I took the SAT, everyone else started writing immediately, but I spent about 15 more minutes just planning exactly what I wanted to say. I basically planned every sentence except for the transitions and conclusion and for the remaining 10 minutes I wrote my essay and came up with a conclusion.</p>
<p>For many people, it's a good idea to have a well-developed outline of what to say before you write anything. Think about the question, think about your answer, and think about evidence to support your answer. Not only that, but also think about how your evidence supports your answer. Once you have thought about all that, and once you have developed a good thesis, then you can start writing.</p>
<p>well i got a 10 on my essay using 1-2-1 format. But on my last essay i filled up the whole page and only got an 8. maybe becuz of writing sytle or something like dat</p>
<p>I got an 80/12. On the essay, I wrote as fast as I could to fill up both pages. Filling the space is key to a good score. Most of what I wrote was B.S. (I rewrote Lincoln's biography), but the scorers obviously liked what they saw. It is always of <em>paramount</em> assistance to <em>utilize</em> "SAT words" whenever the opportunity to do so <em>manifests</em> itself. Write in standard 5-paragraph intro-literature example-historical example-personal example-conclusion format and a good score is in reach.</p>
<p>aisgzdavinci: Nah, minesweeper doesn't help. I am completely serious when I say that I am one of the <em>top</em> minesweeper players in the country (I play at speeds surpassing 5 clicks/sec, and my expert record is 54) but I only scored a 7 on the essay the first time I took the SAT.</p>
<p>(if anybody wants to take a look at my SAT essay and/or minesweeper videos, feel free to pm me)</p>