<p>I really don't understand it. Writing is my strength in school, especially timed writings. I'm the kid whose teacher reads the paper and shows it to the other faculty members (often to my chagrin). It'd stand to reason that the essay section would complement my tests - not so. </p>
<p>When I took the SAT in March I knew I'd written a lousy piece, so I wasn't dismayed when I got a 9. It was when I took the ACT in October that I got perturbed. I walked out really confident, and got the same score, which brought my English + Writing score down 3 points (35 to 32).</p>
<p>Is there some trick everyone else knows but me? I've never taken test prep and I don't plan to take either test again, but I'd like to know if there were some hidden methodology I didn't know about.</p>
<p>It’s different. You’re not really supposed to be creative in the SAT/ACT essays. Neither are you supposed to sound like a poetic genius. You might be having trouble getting to the point. Your examples might not be the best. There could be a bunch of things that you are doing wrong. Luckily, most of them are easily correctable, since you’re already a good writer. You just need to ‘learn’ the SAT/ACT essay.</p>
<p>If you show me one of the essays you wrote, I can give you better help.</p>
<p>I gotta learn how to write the SAT essay too. Do you stick with the 5-paragraph over-two-pages-given essay? Or what? What kind of examples do you use? Do you make up data?</p>
<p>Seriously, I got an 11 on my SAT essay and I made up a quote. Filled all two pages and inserted a few big words here and there. I used big obvious transistions (Finally, Next, Furthermore). It was a horrible essay but it filled all their requirements; long, opening, 3 body paragraphs, conclusion, a few big words, obvious transistions.</p>
<p>The next time I took the SATs, I wrote a better essay, but it was shorter and was not so forward with all the parts of my essay. I got a 7.</p>
<p>Write like you would write teaching someone how to write by exagerating things. Don’t try to be too smart, they only have like 2 minutes to read it. they just see if you have it and move on.</p>
<p>As for essays, I have gotten a 11, 10, and a 12 with… a 4 paragraph format each time. It’s like this:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Fat introduction usually with a made up quote. Really develop this paragraph out with a very, very, very clear thesis. </p></li>
<li><p>For the two body paragraphs, I just go in depth rather write three. For the amount of space they give you (two pages), 3 is pushing it. Again, clear topic sentence with support, which again I usually make up. </p></li>
<li><p>Nice closing that ends with a sentence that more or less restates the first sentence but give it a twist. Think of it as the bow on top of a present for ETS.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Oh and like other people have already mentioned, big words help. I also find smilies and metaphors add some spice.</p>
<p>I also got a 35 on English and I got an 8 for the stupid writing section!
The next time I used crappy “transition words” (first of all, second, finally, etc.), wrote a fifth grade-style five paragraph essay, gave a bunch of ******** personal examples and used the words “me” and “I” in pretty much every sentence, and made up statistics and my score improved!</p>
<p>My friend got an 11 when she wrote a semi-joke essay about how, if schools got rid of extracurriculars, nobody would socialize and so nobody would reproduce and the human race would die out. Sadly I’m not kidding, she really got an 11.</p>
<p>I’ve heard (from a Princeton Review representative) that it takes 90 seconds to grade the essays. The graders look to see that a logical argument is presented and that there are no spelling mistakes.</p>
<p>I wrote a crap essay for my first test and got a 10 essay. I took it cold and wrote a 5 paragraph essay including a pretty bad “personal experience” paragraph.</p>
<p>For my second test, I wrote an artistic piece with 4 paragraphs. I expected a 12. I got an 8.</p>
<p>For the SAT essay, the rule is to be mechanical and obvious.</p>
<p>I agree with blddrake44, to a degree. You have to be mechanical and obvious to a degree. When I tried to write well and concisely on the SAT, I received an 8, and when I tried to write OK but longer…10.</p>
<p>When I was bored and just wrote 2 pages of personal anecdotes on the October ACT, I got a 12. </p>
<p>You have to write more than a page to break an 8, and more than a page and a 1/2 to get a 12 in my opinion. The more you write, the less time they have to process it all. The occasional problem arises when you get a grader with length bias, they’ll screw you, but you usually don’t recieve 2. Just have logical examples and a lot of them if you want to score well.</p>
<p>Grr. I wrote non-stop for those twenty-five minutes and filled up 1 1/4-ish pages with a 4-paragraph essay of what I thought were two solid, well-supported examples, and I got a 9. I figured that it was just because in my hurry I wrote in what was a pretty bland, elementary style, but after reading a lot about the length-score correlation, I don’t know WHAT I did wrong! Pshhh… whatever. I’m not wasting six hours of my life to possibly get those ten points (I got an 80 on the MC.) I just hope that colleges don’t think that I suck at writing; ideally, they’ll just realize that my essay wasn’t what the graders were looking for.</p>
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<p>Haha… best typo ever. “Hello SAT graders! :-)”</p>
<p>Okay, these replies have basically confirmed what I assumed; essay quality is worth about 8 points out of 12 and the rest comes from adhering to the style and format they want. Thank y’all.</p>
<p>For the ACT writing, I am told that it is necessary to present the alternative viewpoint & refute it somewhere in the essay. That is how writing is taught in our public high school, but it was not taught that way at D’s private high school. The poorly written essay can score high simply because it contains the required elements, even if the presentation is not good. No wonder colleges say they aren’t too concerned with the essay score.</p>