When writing an essay, is it true that the SAT doesn’t penalize if the example given contains incorrect or made-up information to support the prompt?
SAT prompt is “Does our society value certainty more than wisdom”. I read the prompt without reading the excerpt, so I misunderstood it, which should be interpreted “People who are certain seem sure about everything and think this will help to conceal weaknesses, while wise people tend to doubt everything.” I understand “certainty” means the steady growth and stability of the society and “wisdom” is the use of wisdom to get greater benefits (power, profits), sometimes unfairly. Will I receive 0?
Hello Mike,
Is it necessary to fill up the two pages on the essay in order to have a high score?
Is it acceptable to use examples from fantasy novels and TV shows in my essays? Will this cause a decrease in my score?
Today I finished reading your Essay Guide (which was very helpful thank you!). I have a quick question on the body paragraphs of an essay. From my understanding, it seems as if a body paragraph for the SAT includes a mini-thesis, and details germane to the thesis follow. Now I’ve been taught that a general body paragraph structure should be topic sentence, evidence, commentary, evidence commentary. Would you say that, for an SAT essay, this structure should be ignored?
Hi Mike,
I got a 10 on the October essay, which was “is it effective for leaders to compromise?” I really thought it was better than a 10, and got 1 MC wrong (770). Some of the essay is illegible due to the scanning,-even though I did erase a lot-it was readable when I proofread. Unfortunately, my whole first line, is unreadable! Should I try to get the College Board to regrade it? I’m not sure what to do/how to do it.
-Not sure how to post image of essay
Thanks for you help!
I struggle a lot with coming up with good pieces of evidence for essay prompts. Do you recommend I just research a copious amount of “could be” pieces of evidence? And what do you recommend doing if, while taking the SAT, you can not think of sufficient pieces of evidence for the prompt? I personally hate making stuff up, so when I come to a prompt that I have very little knowledge about, I usually draw a blank, and am unsure of what to do.
Is it possible to use examples in the SAT Essay from books that I haven’t read but have gone through their summaries?
I’ve been preparing for the SAT for some time now but I have not really practiced the SAT essay. A deadly mistake I guess 😛 What should be my practice routine if I’m giving my SAT in October?
I have a lot to say about the new SAT’s essay; I might not end up being able to squeeze it all into one post, but I’m going to try. In order to give this post a bit of structure—both to help me organize my thoughts and to help you find what you’re looking for—I’m (more…)
PWN the SAT: Essay Guide is available now in two formats: Paperback (list price $12.99) Kindle (list price $7.99) Note that you don’t need an actual Kindle device to read the Kindle version—there are Kindle apps for iOS and Android devices, and Kindle books can also be read right on your web browser. About the (more…)
My Essay Guide is now available as a Kindle book. It’s about 100 pages long, and contains a bunch of the essay advice I’ve posted to this site over the years, plus a bunch of other stuff that I’d never really written down before I decided to write this book. It’s aimed at helping you (more…)
Note: this is an excerpt from the PWN the SAT Essay Guide, available now in paperback and Kindle. Mini-thesis The first sentence of any body paragraph should be what I call a mini-thesis. This sentence refers back to your main thesis, puts it in context of the evidence you plan to cite in the paragraph. (more…)
I find myself giving this bit of quick advice to students all the time, but realized today that I’d never written it down for y’all. You might not have time for this, and that’s OK, but if you finish your essay early, there are a few productive things you can do that don’t involve wholesale (more…)
© Copyright C P Smith and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. My grad school semester is winding down, and I’m starting to think about all the fun Essay Guide work I’m going to be doing the minute I had in my last paper. To that end, I wanted to invite you to write (more…)