<p>So there's about a week left till SATs...</p>
<p>For the essay portion, I'd planned on using personal examples, but I figure that it'll probably be to my benefit if I had several literary or historical examples up my sleeve. What are books that have those versatile themes that can fit many essay prompts? </p>
<p>Lots of thanks,
-scee3</p>
<p>Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"......evil, corruption, fear</p>
<p>Nadine Gordimer, "Once Upon a Time"......racism, fear, futility, amorality</p>
<p>Charles Dickens, "Oliver Twist".....alienation, societal cruelty</p>
<p>Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn...individual vs. society, moral duty, stereotypes, racism, classical education vs. streetsmarts</p>
<p>George Orwell's 1984...individual vs. society, control of the masses, freedom of thought/speech, censorship, oppression, sexuality</p>
<p>I used only these two novels for both the March adn the May SATI, and got a 12 both times.</p>
<p>Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird seems to work quite well.</p>
<p>The Civil Rights Movement applies to many topics.</p>
<p>I've heard many of the 12's received, were people who did not actually talk about english and literature, but instead talked about science. I guess the reasoning is, the graders are obviously extremely literate people, and generally have an outstanding background in literature, therefore, any mistake in information or disagreement between your point of view and theirs, would perhaps lower your score - whereas, speaking about science, where they generally have no clue about, and making a few BS facts can still fly by them.</p>
<p>Ok, here are my suggestions:</p>
<p>Read a biography of a very prominent/versatile person like Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi or John F Kennedy. Also remember, you can make anything up on that essay they are NOT going to check it. If you quote Martin Luther King as saying "And love shall remain the most powerful of all virtues" (just made it up) to support some sort of argument, DO IT, it won't work against you.</p>
<p>Also, I mean you have a week left but, try reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. SOOO many themes: ambition, self-improvement, social class, love, crime, guilt, innocense, corruption of the upper class, fake love. </p>
<p>If you don't have time to read that, read Catcher In The Rye, you can read that in like 2 or 3 days, its a relatively short book.</p>
<p>Another suggestion is Elie Wiesel's Night which is an incredibly short book, but has a lot of themes in it: faith, inhumanity, struggle and resilience, silence, the importance of bonds.</p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>Thisi is what my teacher said.
"Use your good old friend Hitler."</p>
<p>I can see the first sentence now..."Martin Luther King Jr. once said, 'BLAH BLAH BLAH, BLAH BLAH and BLAH.' " Then you could go on and talk about a made up quote...that's kinda funny.</p>
<p>Still... if you were reading an essay with an obvious blatently false statement, such as "Martin Luther King Jr. was white" or some extremely moronic statement like that - just by human nature, you wouldn't want to award them with a 12.</p>
<p>I don't think lying is a good choice either if colleges see the essays.</p>
<p>your essay on SAT would be used to determine if your college essay has pretty much been bleached of anything you would have written and re-varnished by your teachers.</p>
<p>I agree with dtm, Great Expectations would be a great book to qoute. Also see if you can read Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray". And go through Orwell's Animal Farm, it won't take more than a couple of hrs to read and it has quite a few themes.</p>
<p>Short novels like Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, Separate Peace are all easy to read and loaded with themes. You could easily read one a day.</p>
<p>People like Ghandi and Nelson Mandela are very easy to use in your essay. I've used either one in almost every practice essay I've written. Some bad examples would be nice to have, too, such as Richard Nixon.</p>
<p>I made a list before the march SAT, and found it helped GREATLY. Here is the list:</p>
<p>Literary:
-To Kill A Mockingbird
-The Blithedale Romance
-The Crucible
-1984
-Lord of the Flies</p>
<p>People:
-Michael Jordan
-Bill Gates
-John McCain
-Lance Armstrong
-Jimmy Valvano/Coach K from duke basketball
-Eleanor Roosevelt</p>
<p>History:
-Communist scare in 1940s
-Civil War
-Patriot Act
-Holocaust
-Civil Rights movement of the 60s</p>
<p>Les Miserables is pretty good too though you wouldn't have that much time to get acquainted with the storyline.</p>