SAT Essay... ***!?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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<p>I am a bit baffled by the SAT essay. I think I did a fantastic job but... lo and behold... an 8?!</p>

<p>It is interesting, especially given the context of my situation. You see, I'm a published author. I'm serious. I wrote a play that is currently in the process of getting published. I won third place in a provincial essay competition. I'm known at my school for my essays, which teachers frequently use as exemplars.</p>

<p>I'm done bragging now, don't worry ;)</p>

<p>All my friends got 8 on 12 as well and they are exceptional writers. The college advisor at our school is baffled because only one person ever got a 12 on 12. Interestingly, he was considered a mediocre student who only scored 70's in English. </p>

<p>What could account for such a low score, and is it common for good writers to score so low? Are there any "traps" that good writers fall into on the essay? I would really appreciate a significant boost upon my retake in January.</p>

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<p>Oddly, I did really well on the rest of the SAT. 800 M, 730CR. I would have scored 2240 provided the essay counted for nothing, which is very irritating. I actually scored 2210, which I am not pleased about.</p>

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<p>I think this is one reason why alot of the schools don’t even take the Writing Section into account. I was very impressed with my kids’ essays; I thought they were well-written and interesting and showed how they could think quickly on their feet; but they only scored 9 and 10. If I were a college admissions person, I would ignore the scores, but would try to read the essays themselves. I imagine that your essay was missing something in the scoring rubric, but was well written regardless.</p>

4

<p>The SAT essay is the part of the exam the colleges are the most dubious about, because it tests nothing about your writing ability and is a horrible, formulaic portion of the test that’s graded by high school teachers who barely get more than a minute to glance through the essay. It mostly involves gaming the system without any creativity whatsover: you’re supposed to throw in five paragraphs, with 2 or 3 examples supporting your thesis from either literature, history or your personal life. So don’t worry too much about it. Colleges understand how dubious the essay score is and most of them usually take the Maths + CR score into account, anyway.</p>

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<p>Yeah i agree with the post above me. It’s all about gaming the system, not about wheher you can actually write or not. They want a major premise and two examples or one extened example. THAT IS ALL. The second time i took the SAT i knew exactly what they wanted to read so that is what i wrote. Result: 12 of 12. overall SATW: 800.</p>

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<p>Heck, I got a 12 by just writing a DBQ and picking 3 topics from the four “areas” (Historical, personal, current events, and literature).</p>

<p>I seriously think that the College Board has my essay published somewhere, because they took a ridiculously long time to get my test back, and at the time it seemed like there was other reasons (can’t remember off the top of my head…)</p>

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<p>That’s very annoying. Especially since ivies put huge emphasis on writing and don’t have the time to look at individual essays. Bah, who gets into an ivy with 2210 anyway…? The dean at my school says nobody gets in with under 2300 from here (maybe it’s because our school is like 75% asian, and you know how AA treats asians :wink: )</p>

<p>And I did exactly that - I had one major premise plus two examples, one from history and one from my life. I had the “new ideas” one and talked about how ideas are proven correctly, and that new ideas are found when challenging old ideas. I argued that both new ideas AND old ideas should be questioned, although new ideas more. My first example discussed how Einstein’s explanation of the photoelectric effect was challenged but it ended up being proven correct. My second discussed my school’s method of evaluating teachers. New teachers are evaluated every semester. Once you’ve been at the school for four years, you only get evaluated once every three semesters. The same principle should be applied to ideas. All ideas should be questioned, but new ideas should be under greater scrutiny. </p>

<p>If the grader had actually READ my essay, then perhaps he would realize that the grammar, spelling, syntax and vocab were exceptional. But my guess is that they probably only judged it for length, because it was only a page and two thirds. Which is why I only got 4/6 of the marks anyway… because I filled up 4/6 of the space given… wow…</p>

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<p>i got a 11 on this essay. i personally thought that the topic was easy but everyone was saying it was hard. I used three solid literature ex. (crucible, great gatsby, awakening) and alot of SAT words. i think i got an 11 b/c my concluding paragraph was only one sentence due to space :/</p>

<p>my friends, whos a senior, has a book published, 2 books on pending. she is an absolutly one of the best writer in the county. she won number of awards and… shes just amazing. she got an 8. she wrote 2 huge paragraph. shes more like one of those “sophisiticated, into the depth” person, but still…an 8. its really messed up.</p>

<p>its ironic how your acc name is “futurephysician” but you have poetry books published.</p>

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<p>You can get into the lesser ivies just not Yale or Harvard. Princeton and the rest seem more holistic and less statistical. By that I mean a great essay or quality may propel while a great essay without the “Standard score” will not. This makes sense since H&Y seem to have so much more to select from. And from what I’ve seen from past admissions from our score 2300+ is really that big of a requirement</p>

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<p>I’ve found that you get a higher score if you use 3 examples and are concise and to the point. People always say that if you fill up both pages you’ll get at least a 10, but I got a 10 by only doing a page and a little less than a half. It’s all about being able to assert your opinion strongly.</p>

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<p>Same thing happened to me…well except I’m not a published author. I got a writing essay score much lower than I had anticipated, as I was always a strong writer. I just took it again and my score nearly doubled. Sometimes it’s just a crapshoot.</p>

12

<p>The SAT essay doesn’t test writing ability. Many colleges consider it a joke and totally ridiculous. Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean anything about you. Just relax.</p>

<p>Look at what MIT discovered in a study of the “essay”:</p>

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<p>D’s was also an 8 yet she knows of a couple of students at her high school who are not strong students nor strong writers that scored 11s and 12s. For those last few points, it seems that it matters more if you follow the “formula” (whatever that is) that they are looking for.</p>

<p>Keep in mind, as I understand it, the schools to whom you are applying will not only receive your scores but a copy of your essay.</p>

<p>D’s 8 did not harm her in her admissions. She had plenty of choices in the end.</p>

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<p>You are NOT alone! </p>

<p>My D doesn’t know of a single person who got a 12. They exist, obviously. But, as you’ve seen, they are often NOT the person who you would think should be getting that score. I don’t want this to sound like “sour grapes”. But, let’s face it, the scoring of these essays, versus "GOOD READ"s is a VERY different process. And one DOES need to learn to write good essays (“good essay”…can you say oxymoron?)</p>

<p>Like you, my D excels in fiction, where one has literary license to break rules toward the end goal of entertainment (I love a good sentence fragment). I’d much rather she hone that skill. I think she’d be happieras a novelist, than as one who was able to write grant requests, historical reviews, or research papers. I know, that’s NOT what colleges want though.</p>

<p>So…for good grades and good scores one must learn to toe the line. Write according to formula, give “X” number of examples, support each, use rhetoric, include dates. No one really wants to actually READ these things. And they don’t. That is why the scores are so skewed. In fact, there is talk of ELECTRONICALLY scanning and scoring essays in the future-looking for key words and phrases. Today’s scoring isn’t really all that different, the readers are just looking manually for the same thing the scanner would be taught to look for. I don’t think I would feel very accomplished to achieve a 12 through either system. </p>

<p>Like you, my D has a 2210 (740/740/…730-writing, due to an 8 in her essay). This was in 11th grade, so she tried ACT in 12th and got 34 (35 Eng, 34 Reading, but 33 writing due to her essay scored as a “10”).</p>

<p>I’m not saying she’s the best essay writer. In fact, I hope she isn’t. It’s a completely different skill set. She’s always been more right brained. Yes, high schools and colleges are REALLY stressing writing now, as they should. But, when we’re “getting teachers who train students to be bad writers”…AND I BELIEVE WHOLEHEARTEDLY THAT WE ARE!..it’s OK with me if she keeps writing great stories but gets “B” type scores in dull, dry essays. Nope, won’t get her into an Ivy either. But…I’m of the mindset that you pretty much end up where you SHOULD end up. If a college is looking for an essayist…you creative writers might end up frustrated there anyway. Obviously, broad generalizations. But…truly…think about it. Maybe College A has dull dry pocket protecting pencil pushing, fact regurgitaters. College B (only to go to the far extreme to make a point) has fun, creative, hard working, smart but real students. EACH will have a GREAT 4 years because they’re surrounded by more of their “own kind”. </p>

<p>Luck to y’all! “Write on”, and don’t let your essay score define you or your future!</p>

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<p>It doesn’t matter how well you write outside of the SAT essay. It is its own specific style and you need to realize this.</p>

<p>By the way, it’s not like a bad essay is going to kill you.</p>

<p>I got a 9 on my essay and an 800 on the Writing section as a whole.</p>

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<p>I don’t understand SAT’s grading system. D got a 10 on her essay but an 800 on the writing section. what’s the section score if she got a 12 on essay? Seems they count the essay score in writing section very differently and the other part seems more important than essay.</p>

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<p>To my knowledge they add the essay score to your MC score (ratio is around 30/70) and create a raw score, which would then be scaled. If you scored a 9 or 10 in the essay but got 800 overall, that means you did exceptionally well in the MCs.</p>

18

<p>Here’s what I learned & how I got a 12.</p>

<p>first essay Jr year I went in w/o preparation & wrote nonsense. got a 7.</p>

<p>2nd time I told myself I’d write about Gatsby & Scarlet Letter and somehow fit it into the topic. I got lucky b/c the essay was about popular culture. So I used the values portrayed by the book and simply explained how they were shown in popular culture. Still, my essay was (i thought)poorly written & I made up several vocab words. Having knowledge of literature and analyzing it somehow looks good to them, so it’s more about tricking the graders than writing a superb essay. I stay clear of personal examples b/c unless they are exemplary portrayals of the idea, the author is unfamiliar w/ them and has to look closer to analyze whether they fit into the topic and is thus more likely to notice grammatical mistakes and poor diction. Lastly, vary your sentence pattern. It looks good to have semicolons and dashes (and also use lofty diction). I’m not implying that you write a bad essay, but if you’re stuck, you can still do well by tricking the readers. Tis all.</p>

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<p>The SAT essay is ridiculous. I got a 9 last year on what was a very good essay by any measure… except for the College Board’s. I should have known that essays that need to be written in 25 minutes on command would be graded against some BS, formulaic standard. And the fact that I got an odd score reveals subjectivity in the scoring process, which there definitely should be none of. I say trash the essay.</p>

<p>/rant</p>

<p>But on the bright side a 12 essay is apparently easy to get if you learn the formula.</p>

<p>I decided to focus on MC instead (don’t need to worry about subjectivity). 10 essay and 0 MC wrong got my an 800 and people with a 9 essay and 0 MC wrong have gotten 800s as well.</p>

<p>So two options there I suppose.</p>

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<p>At least the SAT essay is light years ahead of the ACT essay…</p>