<p>Bleh, I only got an 8 on my essay for the June test, and overall did not as well as I had hoped, so I'm planning to retake the SAT I in October. Does anyone have any advice on the essay? Like is it good to use examples from books and history to support your idea? My friend told me to know one book, one movie, and one historical event really well and apply it to whatever essay topic they give me, but I'm not sure if I should use this method...</p>
<p>I need help too! Anyone?</p>
<p>Anyone? :'(</p>
<p>Well, I got a 10 on my essay.</p>
<p>What I did, was a related the prompt to my field of interest, specifically physics. My prompt was about how work affects an individual's social patterns, fyi. from the May examination. So, i talked about how stephen hawking's work as a physicist created his social patterns to be familiar with coworkers in the same field. Specifically, i talked about his bet with another physics person (the stake was a set of encyclopedias), about the quantum description of a black hole. For a second paragraph, i related how my job altered my social patterns, especially when i went from mcdonalds cashier to a department store truck unloader.</p>
<p>so, i related it to the larger world, and then to my world. Complete with intro and conclusion. That scored a 10 however.</p>
<p>My friend got a perfect 12, and she gave me this advice:</p>
<p>Write a really large intricate essay about any subject a week or two before you take the test. Then, when you receive your essay prompt, tie it into the essay you just wrote. You'll have a lot of information to work with, and you'll also remember a lot of the sentences from the essay and it will be easy to transpose.</p>
<p>It seems like quite an idea, and I plan on trying it when i retake in October. (2100 isn't good enough for me, which is kinda funny, since i got a 1400 on the old version. exact same score, relatively)</p>
<p>tilteddriveway, the problem with your friends advice is that essays get docked serious points for being off-topic. For most people, it's hard to rework an already written essay to appropriately fit the prompt for any given tests. Your advice is better...tie the essay directly into your area of interest...as long as it's appropriate.</p>
<p>I often recommend that students pick one favorite book that has lots of diverse themes. Review the themes, plot, and characters so you can use them if you feel it's appropriate. You might also want to pick a particular bit of history and do a similar review. If the essay prompt doesn't seem to fit the book or bit of history you picked, don't sweat it, but if they do, then you have some nice detailed info with which to argue your point.</p>
<p>You should also try to fill at least 1 1/2 pages and shoot for filling in the entire 2 pages. After all these years of denial, it turns out that size does, in fact, seem to matter... :)</p>
<p>Great advice, people. The problem is, I seem to blank out when I need to think of good, concrete examples from books/history to back my ideas up. It's sad...</p>
<p>And tilteddriveway, your essay sounds really solid!!</p>
<p>bummer, then that's a great reason to review a book and some history ahead of time...</p>
<p>...but don't be afraid to use something from your own personal experience or, as a last resort, just make something up. The essay graders are not allowed to dock points for things that are factually incorrect. If you said that Tonga won World War II, that would be fine, so long as your essay was well-organized and well-written. But really, only do that as a last resort...</p>
<p>oh, another thing here is that time is of the essence, especially with the positive correlation between score and length.</p>
<p>So when you receive your prompt, don't really "think" about what you're going to write about. The first reasonable topic that comes to mind should be what you write about. That gives you plenty of time to throw as much as you can into the essay rather than worrying about "the perfect subject matter".</p>
<p>for my essay, i reflected for ~5 seconds and then began writing.</p>
<p>i wrote a one page essay and with everyone telling me length matters most, I thought I was screwed. I was expecting like a 6 and I got a 9 so I'm pretty happy.
my suggestion: read CB's suggestions regarding the SAT essay .</p>
<p>aaron56, I'm jealous of you. I wrote 1.75 pages, but only got a 8. Must have been a problem with my unsolid 2 examples and long 1 sentence conclusion!!! AAAAH</p>
<p>aaron56 is right...if there is anything worth reading in the beginning of the CB book, it's the section on the essay. It's overkill, but might be helpful.</p>
<p>And I disagree a little bit tilteddriveway...I think you can afford to spend about 5 minutes brainstorming ideas. For most, 20 minutes is plenty of time to write two pages, and if your ideas are well-organized ahead of time, you might end up with a better essay. But everybody's different. You should all have a pretty good idea of your own writing skills, so go with what works for you.</p>
<p>I <em>thought</em> I was a pretty strong writer, but my test score does not reflect that. Being braindead during SAT sucks!</p>
<p>I got a 10 and talked about the quotation the prompt cited (though I used it in a weird way) it was about Columbus and how he defied the majority opinion. I wrote that the majority doesn't view Columbus as he should be viewed, as someone who committed genocide. (Sad but true, his expeditions caused the eventual wipeout of 16,000 natives). Now looking back on it though, my essay talking about "absoute genocide" might have been pushing it a bit.</p>
<p>My essay prompt was on the media and how it determines what people think is important...</p>
<p>hey bummer, same prompt here...;)</p>
<p>lol aaron56!! :P</p>