<p>What is the best way to prepare for the SAT essay?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Read often. You will get a feel for the syntax, style, and rhythm necessary for good reading. Not only should you read what you are interested in, read academic journals/article as well. Time Magazine, National Geographic, and other more academic-related magazines and books will help you.</p></li>
<li><p>Think of experiences from your own life that you could use as examples to support you. Writing in a journal helps, as it jogs your memory and helps you to recall things that happened in your life.</p></li>
<li><p>Write often. The more you write, the more you get a feel for your own style and the mistakes you normally make.</p></li>
<li><p>Pick up an SAT book for the potential essay topics, or visit the College Board website, and actually practice writing the essay. Begin with practicing freewriting. Read the prompt and write the first thing that comes to your mind. Then evaluate it and compare it against sample essays, if you can. What does your writing have in common with top scored essays? What is it missing? Then work on each component of the essay. Start with working on brainstorming -- work on coming up with examples that back your assertions. Make them stronger and stronger. Then work on outlining and structuring your essay. Don't worry too much about grammar and spelling -- a few mistakes won't lose you any points.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>-P.S. -- I'm an SAT critical reading/writing tutor employed by Kaplan.</p>
<p>practice writing them....a lloooottt of them. I did around 100 or so and timed myself. Find A LOT of test prompts.... and have someone correct them...maybe a high school english teacher or the poster above? I used an english tutor I had known for a while. </p>
<p>I used an old sat II writing book to find prompts since I was one of kids who took the very first 2400 SAT. There was a whole list of prompts that covered about 2 pages. A friend's older brother or sister may have this. Some of the new SAT books may a list as well. My tutor also had prompts gathered from her other students who took classes and a list of prompts from another book, so ask around. Of course, use an actual SAT prep book.</p>
<p>I always practiced using 2 books and one current event, 2 books, or 1 book, 1 current event, and 1 historical event as my examples.
books are usually ones read for school.
current events are from TIME or msnbc.com.
historical events ... usually some war =P</p>
<p>soon you'll find yourself reusing examples for several prompts. =]</p>
<p>Although I'm not an amazing tutor like the poster above, I did score 11 and 12 on my SAT tests. =]</p>
<p>100 omg but that sounds like good practice</p>
<p>check out the sample graded essays published by the college board. that's what you want to learn to write like. that's what they reward. you can learn it in about a weekend. i can't tell you how many times an SAT grader has complained to me about how poor the writing is that they have to give high marks to because of Pearson's/CB's rules. also, note that some well-written sample essays published by the CB get low scores.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help guys :]
Does getting a tutor help? and if so is it possible to only get a tutor for the essay and not the whole exam?</p>
<p>A tutor can help, but a tutor is not necessary to doing well on the SAT essay. If you follow the advice given above, you should be able to score an 11 or 12 on the essay with ease. Just find a writing style that suits you best and practice writing in that style a lot and you'll find that the essay is easier than you think.</p>
<p>I took a class and they told us to plan essays before the test. There are some topics that are pretty likely to be an essay (ie goals, dreams, etc). Read a lot of books that might be useful to your essay. Think of topics that you would be able to use these books in. I just plan before and think of books that might be of use, because half the time, I forget which books I have read! So it helped me to make a list of books and historical events/people that might be of use in any kind of essay. PRACTICE! Lastly, learn a multitude of common words that might come up such as happy, sad, good, bad, many, etc.... just expand your vocabulary; that's one of the things they look for. If you keep writing this was good for this person, and this was good for our nation, etc., they might not give you a good score because of the lack of variety in your vocabulary. Don't start sentences all the same; variety is the key!</p>