<p>Many SAT prep guides recommend preparing your examples for you SAT essay beforehand and molding those examples to fit the given prompt. Of course, these examples need to be broad enough so that they can be shaped for a variety of prompts. </p>
<p>What examples worked well for you?</p>
<p>I use two plays: Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” and Sophocles’s “Oedipus Rex.” I’ve actually come up with an almost entirely prewritten essay. The intro/conclusion are always the same. So is the context and general evidence in each of the body paragraphs. All I have to do is write a new thesis and analyze the evidence in a way that relates to that thesis. The plays work for any question concerning the human condition or interpersonal/societal relations (basically all the questions.) I’m only screwed if the question is something about reality TV or public policy related.</p>
<p>I’ve personally never used these examples, but many people use/suggest “The Scarlet Letter”, “The Great Gatsby”, and many other classics or historic events/people like wars or MLK. Fahrenheit 451 would work well on a lot of essays too, especially those regarding technological advancements. Personally, I’ve used Kurt Vonnegut on both of my essays and I’ve done fairly well on them.</p>
<p>These are some great ideas. BUMP</p>
<p>I would also suggest George Orwell and Ayn Rand’s books such as 1984, Animal Farm and Anthem.</p>
<p>1984 , if analysed properly applies to a wide variety of topics</p>
<p>5 historical references
5 books
5 current events
I chose 3 of the 15 (1 current event, 1 book and 1 historical reference) for the SAT essay and having them already prepared, I saved time and was able to achieve a 12 on the essay.</p>
<p>What I usually do is this:</p>
<p>1st example: Book (I always use Ender’s Game for this - it has fit every single essay topic I’ve done in my life.)
2nd example: Old scientist(People like Newton, Leibniz, Tesla, Lavoisier, etc).
3rd example: Some sort of recent event or old history topic that I know about (Presidential election, war of 1812, Andrew Jackson, etc)</p>
<p>Honestly I think the best way to prepare for the essay especially if you have only a short amount of time left is to use relevant ideas that you already know about. I already owned Ender’s Game before hearing about the SAT, I researched those types of scientists every once in a while for fun, and I learned the history thing through my history classes or recent news. It’s much easier to talk about with less prep.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the vast majority of the prompts deal with some aspect of success.</p>