Are there any books/movies I should read/watch that I can use as support on the essay portion of the SAT?
I remember quite a while ago, someone attempted to test the College Board’s SAT essay scoring system. He wrote positively about Hitler and Nazism. I am having a hard time finding it on Google, but the essay still scored a 6 because it was well written.
The point is that there aren’t any specific books or movies you “should” read or watch. You should be focusing on writing logical, cohesive arguments with a variety of sentence structures, good grammar, and spelling.
http://www.reddit.com/comments/qt5xw/by_request_i_was_an_sat_essay_scorer_ama/
If you look at this AMA (ask me anything) from a former SAT essay grader, she states that scorers were “not allowed to score on correctness of content”. You could write about anything even personal experiences so long as it develops and/or supports your thesis.
https://sat.collegeboard.org/practice/writing-sat-essay?pageId=practiceWritingEssay&tabValue=scoring
The College Board even provides an SAT essay example that scored a 6 using personal experience to support its arguments.
What should you do instead? Read up on the types of topics that have been used previously. Here are some of the topic types : knowledge, learning, and creativity; society and culture; success and achievement; morality; opinions and values.
Sorry, I think CC doesn’t allow reddit links. You’ll have to google the ama yourself 