SAT Essays: Post your scores/essays here! Help out the CC'ers!

<p>Let's see if we can find some patterns here.
If took a recent test, please fill this out so everyone here can learn from some correlation! Just copy and paste and plug in your answers.</p>

<p>Month/Year:
Score:
Prompt:
Length:
Clarity/Quality:
Vocab:
Structure:
Examples Used:
Additional Comments:
ESSAY: </p>

<p>Here's an example (not a real test)
Month/Year: March 2011
Score: 11
Prompt: Photography
Length: 1.75 pages
Clarity/Quality<em>: Decently written
Vocab</em>: Sprinkled a few SAT words here and there in good context
Structure<em>: Very simple and direct sentence structure. 4 Paragraphs
Examples Used: Obama and Bush
Additional Comments</em>: I thought I got a 0 since the prompt threw me off. I used example A and B and it felt offtopic afterwards!
ESSAY: (insert posted essay here)</p>

<p>The starred portions involve some detail so feel free to write anything you feel can help the community!</p>

<p>***** IF POSSIBLE *****
It would GREATLY help everyone here if you can post your essay! That way people can see what kind of essays get what kind of scores. More importantly, if there is a correlation between certain writing methods and high scores!</p>

<p>Thank you for posting!</p>

<p>We need your help guys! The previous thread made many pages that helped tons of students!</p>

<p>Month/Year: October 2011
Score: 12
Prompt: Is it important to learn from our mistakes?
Length: Used all the space given
Clarity/Quality: Seems pretty good to me. I kind of faltered with my example of the Armenian Genocide. I started writing about it without thinking and the argument made was rather weak because of this.
Vocab: I used big words when I felt they were necessary. I think most SAT writers use too many big words and their ideas become less clear because of it.
Structure: Thesis + 3 examples
Examples Used: Don Quixote, Jack Welch, Armenian Genocide
Additional Comments:
ESSAY:</p>

<p>One of the most important life skills acquired is that of learning from yours and others’ mistakes. Indeed, this becomes apparent when inspected in different areas of politics, literature, and business. </p>

<p>In the novel “Don Quixote” by Miguel Cervantes, the main character is a knight errant who refuses to learn from his mistakes. While this provides for an interesting plot, it is philosophically important that he does not learn that actions do have consequences. Don Quixote believed that eh was granted impunity as a knight, but Cervantes makes it apparent to the reader that while Quixote is smart, it is his obstinate refusal to learn from his many failed adventures that stops him from truly being great.</p>

<p>Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric from 1984-2004, is epitomizes the idea that mistakes are important - he realized what everybody else had been doing incorrectly. Unlike many CEOs, Welch adopted a sense of brutal candor, something he said was lacking from business men. Welch cut the bottom 10% of his management annually while providing large benefits to the top 10%. Through analyzing the mistakes of his contemporaries and implementing change, Welch increased the wealth of GE from 20 billion dollars to over 5400 billion dollars and was named Fortune Magazine’s “CEO of the Century.”</p>

<p>The Armenian genocide of the early 20th century is a mistake that we may take many lessons from. Most importantly, it instilled a fear of empiricism in the western world. A modern genocide was brought on by countries - Greece, Turkey, and Serbia, wanting greater empires. These ethnic clashes begotted ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Armenians, Greeks, and Turks, in a didactic lesson that the west failed to learn from. If we had analyzed the genocide and why it happened, further genocides in Germany and the Philippines could have been abated.</p>

<p>Indeed, mistakes are important throughout all realms of life. As we have seen, the response to mistakes separates Don Quixote from Jack Welch and allows or prevents macabre political and ethnic affairs.</p>

<p>Patterns are not hard to discern - look up Les Perelman’s statistical correlates of SAT scores, follow those, and you will do fine on the SAT essay. I took the SAT a total of three times and I received scores of 12, 12, and 11 on the essay section simply by following those recommendations.</p>

<p>I’m too lazy to type my essays up right now so here’s the actual essay scan. I post it mostly to dispel the notion that good handwriting is necessary for a top score. This essay received a 12.</p>

<p>Prompt: </p>

<p>Is an idealistic approach less valuable than a practical approach? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations. </p>

<p>[Page</a> 1](<a href=“http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/804/satessay1.jpg/]Page”>ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs)</p>

<p>[Page</a> 2](<a href=“http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/692/satessay2a.jpg/]Page”>ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs)</p>

<p>(and no, even I can’t read parts of it)</p>

<p>oct/nov test takers, any info, even with essay left out, will help!</p>

<p>@snipersas I <3 your handwriting LOL</p>

<p>Month/Year: October 2012
Score: 12
Prompt: Do people need discipline to achieve freedom?
Length: Filled up 1 and 3/4 pages
Clarity/Quality: Examples were concise, I believe.
Vocab: Too much
Structure: Intro + 3 examples + conclusion
Examples Used: Framers of the constitution, Martin Luther King, Jr., going to college
Additional Comments: I must admit that I used quite a few vocab words incorrectly. Since I got a 12, we can learn three things from this. First, that the quality of the example doesn’t matter (people say to use novels, etc.). Second, the proper use of vocab also doesn’t matter. And third, the factual use of the examples also do not matter. I mixed up Malcolm X and W.E.B. DuBois on their descriptions and made up that they were accusatory. One more thing: I wanted to use sempiternal instead of eternal, but I wasn’t sure whether it was a word or not on test day. Oh well. I had fun using my vocab.</p>

<p>ESSAY: </p>

<p>All around us, we, as people of a sovereign nation, see freedom in its full plenipotentiary glory. But where has this freedom come from? It is the fruition of years of planning and protest, of our nation’s founding fathers, of our history of leadership. It is the distinct quality of discipline that led to the consummate ideals that billions of people live by quotidian.</p>

<p>With great cooperation comes great influence. Just ask the framers of the constitution, composed of fifty-five polyhistors with different bailiwicks. How are people with different weltanschauungs supposed to agree on such a monolithic topic? The chairman, George Washington, was called on before anyone else. People who did not tolerate the discussion simply walked out. Those with the strongest principles, and discipline, were the ones whose ideas were adopted into the ubiquitous freedom that the United States is renowned for.</p>

<p>Two hundred years later, another revolutionary event rises into play. African Americans, who were held by the fetters of a non-integrated society, strived to achieve an eternal freedom. Many activists, such as Malcolm X and W.E.B. DuBois were known for their intellectual papers and violent uprisings, respectively. But what these people lacked was the sheer foundation of discipline; their ways were accusatory and desultory. Not much was to be gained from their disorder. However, when a man of nonviolent protest, the epitome of discipline, rises into action, we see a change that Martin Luther King, Jr. has transpired for decades. This proves that discipline is the cornerstone of freedom, for these results would have never happened without it.</p>

<p>Freedom doesn’t even have to be on such a large scale to see the effects of discipline on it. Going to college is seen as one of the prevalent ways of escaping the bunker of homeliness. Individuality is often displayed as such, and the only way people go to college and live a life of solitude is through persistent discipline.</p>

<p>While the effects may seem surreptitious, throughout history a multitudinous amount of events have displayed the impetus of discipline causing freedom. Whether it is the establishment of a country, a removal of a law, or even the journey of life, the keynote process remains the same. And that is because with discipline comes freedom.</p>

<p><<WELTANSCHAUUNG</p>

<p>Oct 2012? Good stuff in the essay though - I didn’t know what to think when I read weltanschauung lol.</p>

<p>Whoops, meant October 2011 obviously.</p>

<p>@JP8000
Wow, just wow lol</p>

<p>WOW , how could you people write those essays :0 Can anyone from those who got 12 gives us an essay template ??</p>

<p>Guys, I promise you, I am not here to show off. I am here to post an example of an essay that scored a 12. You don’t need to inject your essay with so much verbiage; you simply need good and consistent structure and support. On a side note, the only reason why I knew all of those vocab words is because of the SAT. I studied over 1000 words, so I figured that I might as well use them. Use what you have. Oh and one more thing: Don’t stop writing on test day.</p>

<p>@JP8000: most people say that you shouldn’t use vocab words that you know if they aren’t used correctly. But, you admit that you didn’t use several of your words correctly and yet you earned a 12. So, it just seems to contradict everything I’ve heard :confused: do you suggest using sophisticated language incorrectly or using kinda simple language correctly?</p>

<p>Perhaps I phrased that a little incorrectly. Every word in the English language has a certain intonation, inflection, or connotation, so to speak. If you look up the definition of every vocab word in my essay, you will see that it makes sense. When I say I used it incorrectly, here are a few examples. Surreptitious means sneaky or undercover; here I use it to mean hidden. Keynote refers to a main theme; I use it to show a standardized process. These are the subtleties I’m talking about. Now, on test day I did not realize I used these words incorrectly. My recommendation is that if you feel comfortable using a certain word or phrase, then go ahead and do it. There is simply not enough time to pick and choose the right word for the context.</p>

<p>Thanks for the advice; btw what did you get on the writing portion of the exam?</p>

<p>710 writing with an 8 essay was my best -_-
12 essay would have given me an 800. How disappointing.
I could post my essay as an example of what is bad?</p>

<p>Month/Year: November 2011
Score: 8
Prompt: Do people need discipline to achieve freedom?
Length: 1.5 pages
Clarity/Quality: Not very good - I did not focus on the main question as much as I should have.
Vocab: Again, not much vocab, besides basic words.
Structure: Intro + 3 paragraphs, the last of which also included the conclusion
Examples Used: Only 1 fictional/real-life example
ESSAY: Not even worth posting, it was bad. This was my first time taking the SAT, and I had not previously studied anything, nor prepared in any way. All in all, I was pretty happy with my 670 on writing, despite the fact that I wanted to achieve over a 750.</p>

<p>@serendipity7
I got an 800, but it came as a total surprise. I greatly underestimated my essay and I also knew I got two writing questions wrong, so I figured that I might have gotten a third wrong. I don’t know how, but it turned out that those two questions were the only two I got wrong, and the essay got a perfect score, both against all odds. I got lucky :)</p>

<p>An amazing thread. Hungry for your help… bump</p>

<p>I got a 12 on my essay. I defer to Academic Hacker’s thread…</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/645763-how-write-12-essay-just-10-days.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/645763-how-write-12-essay-just-10-days.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;