<p>I took the December SAT, and I got a 9 on my essay.</p>
<p>But my essay was AMAZING. It was literally the best thing I have ever written in my life, with amazing diction, vocabulary, and rhetorical style. I used elevated literary examples like James Joyce, and I had a nuanced (but not straddling the fence) thesis. </p>
<p>I only wrote 1.5 pages however, and I guess that is how the Collegeboard graders grade. I'm definitely going to send them an angry letter...</p>
<p>I know what you mean. During the December SAT, I wrote the my worse essay ever only filling a page and a couple lines with no conclusion and got a nine. I also had factual errors and probably several grammatical errors. I expected to get a six.</p>
<p>umm yea one of my friends had factual errors all over the place and made up a personal example from october sat and got a 12 essay...
but then again she wrote full two pages, full two examples, and had very good vocab and sentence variation.</p>
<p>I got a nine this time. I nearly filled up both pages, but didn't finish my last sentence. Oh well lol</p>
<p>That's the point. The essay really isn't a good indicator of how good a writer you are. But the good thing is that it's pretty well known what you need to do for a 10+</p>
<ul>
<li>Solid intro, introduce the quote, make your position explicitly clear</li>
<li>3 supporting examples, preferably 2 literature and 1 history or 1 literature 2 history</li>
<li>Concluding paragraph that refers back to your original position, points out the implications of your thesis, identifies other possible supporting examples that exist, etc.</li>
<li>As close to the full two pages as you can</li>
<li>Vary your sentence structure, throw in an SAT word when appropriate</li>
</ul>
<p>Haha I got an 11 with only two examples, one of which was severely underdeveloped. But I did fill up every line and used decent vocab. This essays really are a joke</p>
<p>Mine filled up exactly 2 pages up to the last line. I followed the advice of some CC'ers and put my thesis as my very first sentence. Made up all 3 of my factual examples, including the names and events.
I was hopeful for a 12, but got a 10. Now I really don't know how they grade it....</p>
<p>I had no idea what to write, didn't really care either. I used the colonists to America, Barack Hussein Obama, and Britney Spears as my examples (no lie). Wrote for the entire time, came very close to two pages, knew it was one of the worst essays I had ever written, got a 10.</p>
<p>This is in contrast to my previous SAT where I wrote what I thought was a very good essay and got a 9.</p>
<p>well at least you're modest.</p>
<p>Yeah, I wrote 2 horrible pages with a made up example and two that didnt make sesnse with the prompt (I was having an off day...) and got a 10.</p>
<p>i wrote 2 full pages with every single line filled, i only had 2 example, one of which is personal example that's only part true, i got a 11</p>
<p>I felt that this essay was one of my more poor pieces and I got a 12. My essay before I was so proud of and happy after I wrote it and I got a 8. Go figure.</p>
<p>My essay was crap and I got a 9. I had 2 examples—one from *Dragon Tales<a href="how%20that%20big%20blue%20dragon%20Ord%20%5Bi%5Dacted%5B/i%5D%20brave%20by%20pretending%20to%20be%20%22SuperOrd%22,%20which%20in%20the%20end%20helped%20him%20overcome%20his%20fear%20of%20thunder">/i</a> and the other a made-up experience about getting lost at the mall and, like Ord, calming myself down by acting brave...</p>
<p>i thought mine was awful. i completely twisted the prompt into another essay i'd written for a practice test. but it filled every line and had decent vocabulary, so i assume that's why it got an 11.</p>
<p>HAHAHAHA blackberry's post made my day. (morning?)</p>
<p>Yeah generally people tell me my writing is great, but I write extremely small and I ended up with barely a page, and a 6. GG</p>
<p>I wouldn't say my essay was the best thing I ever wrote, but I definitely thought it was pretty good, deserving of at least a 10 (especially judging by the kind of stuff that got 6 in the blue book). But I suppose it being slightly less than a page and a quarter doomed it to 9.</p>
<p>Stupid essay.</p>
<p>Yeah, I don't know. There have been real studies showing a direct correlation between essay length and essay score on the SAT... I guess it's just human nature.</p>
<p>The SAT Essay is not a writing test. Let me repeat that: The SAT Essay is not a writing test.</p>
<p>If it were, they would give you more than 25 minutes. Nobody can write a decent essay in 25 minutes. If it were, they wouldn't look down on essays just because they are shorter.</p>
<p>If it were a writing test, they would give you unlimited time to write the best essay that you possibly could, and then their readers would take more than a minute to read it.</p>
<p>But, alas, they don't. So you cannot write the same essay that you do in your English class.</p>
<p>You need a clear intro and pointed thesis, three solid examples that clearly support your thesis, and a short conclusion. It absolutely has to be two pages. Don't worry about colorful language; the most important thing is getting your point across. Remember, your reader has very little time to ingest the essay so you want to make sure everything you say is up front and obvious.</p>
<p>it's funny, actually. I tried to write a SAT essay in my english calss, and my teacher gave me a G, which stands for garbage. :)</p>
<p>my essay was pretty stupid and i got a 12</p>
<p>i talked about the little engine that could, carrie bradshaw from sex & the city, a personal experience of me taking the SATs, and hamlet............</p>
<p>and trust me, i didn't use SAT vocab since i dont know any (690 on reading... with a minimum of 4x on the SCs)</p>
<p>proof that they grade mostly on structure, not content.</p>