<p>I know this may sound like a stupid question but it's legitimate. I recently took the SATs and received a 10 on my essay, which I thought deserved more than that. My handwriting is pretty bad but with a normal pencil, it was even worse. If any of you have looked at your essays that comes with your score reports, you can see that the lines are taken away when the essay is scanned. </p>
<p>Without the lines and with a normal pencil, my handwriitng is absolutely horrendous. I typed in my essay on the collegeboard online grader and received a 6. </p>
<p>Have any of you used a lead pencil for the essay section of the test?</p>
<p>i tried but my proctor attacked me. yeah, the lead shouldnt affect your score though. but i would do point 7 instead of point 5 just to make sure that it shows up dark enough.</p>
<p>I have the same problem (horrrrible handwriting) and didn't use a lead pencil. however, I am a little compulsive when it comes to writing (I don't even know if I hold a pencil correctly to be honest), and hatee using a regular pencil on the cheap SAT pages, so I used a lead pencil to bubble in on math IIC and had no problem with the grid (in case you planned on using it for the entire test).</p>
<p>I also thought the reason lead pencils were outlawed was because students could store cheat sheets in the lead compartment, not because they didn't scan properly?</p>
<p>hmm i dont know about the cheat sheet stuff. i always thought it was because they were afraid that someone would accidentally use a mechanical pencil that wasnt number 2 and mess up the scanning. but i could be wrong.</p>