Ask The Experts
Does the mention of the SAT essay perplex you? Are there things you wished someone would explain to you about it? Does the idea of writing the essay scare you because you don't know where to begin?
Find out all the information you ever wanted to know about the SAT essay- what you need to know before you attempt, scoring on the essay, how it is graded and much more. Read on............
The SAT Essay - All You Wanted to Know
Your nemesis in a SAT exam could well be the 500 words plus essay. With messaging and short answers being the norm, essay writing is an art not often practiced while growing up.
Which is why, tackling the essay is an issue of practice. The SAT essay is an opportunity to exhibit your ability to develop ideas and build content supporting it.
A logical presentation with clear concise and if possible powerful language will go a long way in your achieving higher grades in your SAT score.
Let's begin understanding with an example of 2 sentences on leadership.
Leadership is something that takes us to take bold steps and to be able to help others and lead them to some direction.
As compared to- leadership means motivating others into a positive direction.
Point to note- There is no way that you can take the SAT essay and score well on it without having worked on it earlier.
Once we have this as our premise there certain things you need to keep in mind before attempting the essay. Things to avoid/ and language to use
How Prepared are you before the SAT
Checklist
- When you reach the essay section-you will be given 25 minutes to attempt the essay and complete it.
- A pencil is required for the essay. An essay written in ink will receive a score of zero.
- Your essay must be written on the lines provided on your answer sheet-you will receive no other paper on which to write.
- Do not write your essay in your test book. You will receive credit only for what you write on your answer sheet.
- Work on your essay skills before the exam.
Learning How to Ace the Essay
- Plan before hand how you are going to be tackling the essay -Essay Format
- Keep ready one or two quotes which you can use anywhere.
- Strategize- you should have already planed out-what your essay will carry as an outline and the number of words you will aim at while writing it-Its called- Writing a good Essay
- Make sure you have practiced some sample essays earlier.
- Write in the conventional standardized written English- no slang, no short forms no casual English "dude, leadership is the name of the new game on the block"
- Develop a point of view on an issue presented in an excerpt also called your thesis statement.
- Support your point of view using logical explanations and examples from your reading, studies, experiences, or observations.
- Your work must be original and individual otherwise your test scores may be canceled.
- Be sure to have read up on how you are going to be scored and that you know where to score points-Follow the grading rubric for an essay.
- An essay which is off-topic will receive a score of
zero.
Tip2 - Write on every line, avoid wide margins, and keep your handwriting to a reasonable size that way you will not run short for space.
Faced with the Essay
Remember - The topic of the essay is a box with a prompt like a famous quote or a comment and then underneath is a statement off the problem.
For example - Many people believe that our government should do more to solve our problems. After all, how can one individual create more jobs or make roads safer or improve the schools or help to provide any of the other benefits that we have come to enjoy? And yet expecting that the government-rather than individuals-should always come up with the solutions to society's ills may have made us less self-reliant, undermining our independence and self-sufficiency.
Assignment - Should people take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
The topic for your essay can be just about anything. What it will not be though is political issues or religious issues. Like the war in Iraq is not going to be a topic and nor will a comment on Islam or Christianity come up as a topic. The questions are strictly philosophical.
The trick, read the quote/comment in the beginning and remember don't get fazed by it. The first part is a stimulus, the real question lies in the assignment portion. Sometimes it is tough just to understand the topic so what is required is to practice on general topics which will give you a guideline on how to write the essay. Writing a good essay
Do not experiment with any format except for what you have already tried out and works best for you.
How The Essay is Scored
Before knowing what to write it is important to know how to the SAT essay is scored on a scale of 0-6. Each essay is graded by two people who have no idea about your school your name or where you from. You can achieve a total score of 12 (6 from each grader) on the SAT Essay and a low score of 2 (1 from each grader). SAT Essays that are off topic are given a score of 0.
Your SAT essay is scored by College and high school teachers who have been teaching writing for a minimum of five years score SAT essays. Most of these graders are high school English teachers and have had extensive training provided by The College Board.
Graders are asked to grade your essay "holistically." This means that they are instructed to look at your essay as a whole judging the quality of your ideas, and how you prove them to come up with your score.
Important Tip - Research has shown that there is one factor that has the strongest impact on your score and that is length. Essays that had more than 400 words achieved the highest score of 12 about 90% of the time.
Keep in mind - The SAT Essay is about 10% of your total SAT score. Your total score is a result of your scores on the Math, Critical Reading and Writing sections.
Each section is worth 800 points out of 2400 possible. The SAT Essay is 30% of your writing score or about 240 points. Two hundred and forty points is 10% of 2400.
How Colleges view your essay
Depending which college you are applying to - Some Colleges use the test to determine who among equally qualified candidates they will admit. Some also use it to determine if a student has cheated on their essay. In evaluating scores for the new SAT, some schools plan to give the Writing section More Weight, or Lesser Weight depending on their own internal decision making.
While losing sleep over it is not going to help, picking up your pen and starting on practice definitely will. Don't bother about how much you can write initially- even 100 words on a topic will do. What is important is to build up the writing skills and that takes practice.
/54x54/cropped/avatar.jpg "priyamverma"){kind=avatar}
Post Comments