<p>Just wondering, are there any certain styles and/or loopholes that I can use to score higher among the essay? Or do I instead need to endure the long way, getting used to magazine articles, SAT reading passages, etc?</p>
<p>You can look at model essays that got 12s online. Just follow that format, use good vocab, and make sure your argument makes sense. That’s it</p>
<p>CB tells you what their criterion is. A 6 has
“Effectively and insightfully develops a point of view on the issue and demonstrates outstanding critical thinking, using clearly appropriate examples, reasons and other evidence to support its position”
[SAT</a> Essay Scoring - How SAT Essays Are Scored](<a href=“The SAT – SAT Suite | College Board”>Understanding SAT Scores – SAT Suite | College Board)</p>
<p>In my opinion you will struggle to get to that with a canned template.</p>
<p>From someone that moved up from a 7 to a 12 and got a 2400 on the SAT, my one piece of advice is to know your evidence well. In the beginning, I would choose three examples, explain them all poorly without depth, and receive 8s. I decided I would choose just one example from then on, and I wrote: an intro, two body paragraphs on that one example, and a quick 1-2 sentence conclusion. I don’t want to say there’s a formula, but this structure definitely helped boost me from an 8 to a 10. It’s a struggle, but you have to elaborate on your example and make sure it really answers the prompt. The scorers cannot grade on your accuracy; they grade on your use of evidence. For example, if you said “Martin Luther King Jr. created cheese,” the scorers could not mark you down (assuming you had a way to tie the claim into your essay to answer the prompt). Remember to put lots of evidence and really go into depth on your examples.</p>
<p>In addition to what other responders have already said about organizing your structure and increasing the depth of examples, I would argue that the difference between a good score like 8/10 and the perfect score of 12 is your writing style and how your essay flows. The perfect essays won’t just be good at presenting an argument, but they’ll do it in a way that is well-written and sophisticated in terms of vocabulary, syntax variation, etc. They just flow better as a whole.</p>
<p>Obviously, it’s hard to improve your writing style and be more “sophisticated” under a timed setting. (I consider myself a good writer and was disappointed by my 10. In retrospect when I looked at my essay again online, I had to concede that it wasn’t good enough for an 11/12.) But here are some tips to keep in mind: IN ADDITION to using good, developed examples and organizing your essay well, try not to use awkward phrasing as you write, think of stronger, more precise terms for what you want to say (rather than just the first thing that comes to mind), and avoid being repetitive or clunky. That will help improve the style of your essay, which will complement your great, detailed argument.</p>