<p>I'm a pretty good essay writer (if I do say so myself), but most of my writing is done on a computer. I find that being able to type quickly and painlessly erase things allows me to try many different possibilites while writing. Consequently, I have some trouble when I have to write by hand. I'm usually fine when I'm just regurgitating facts (like in bio or history), but when I'm forced to produce quality literature by hand my style and word choice are at least 20% worse than what I could do in the same time limit on a computer. Obviously this is a problem during SATs and in-class essays.</p>
<p>What should I do? I'm sure I'm not the only one who experiences this. For context I'm a freshman, but this was true for me in middle school as well.</p>
<p>As a person who has never scored below a 4 on any AP exam, I can say that writing quality essays under intense time constraints must be practiced and learned. You need to just be able to manage your thoughts more clearly. If you practice writing essays for prompts quickly and arranging a cohesive essay, the vocabulary will follow, as long as you have that vocab in the first place. Here’s a helpful hint: the purpose of timed essays is to see how well you can think on your feet while performing a quality essay. I taught myself to write a certain way every time I write an essay, no matter the topic. 99% of the time, I never write a 5 paragraph essay. I always wrote 4 paragraph essays in AP classes and on the AP tests, and they were still good enough to get top scores. Just gotta find a writing style that helps you think more clearly I guess.</p>