The Best Book On Zen SAT Prep

Highlights:

• You only have 25 minutes for the essay. Spend 5 minutes planning and 20 minutes writing. If you don’t plan first, you’re liable to write yourself in a circle.
• Remember that the essay is an argumentative essay. You have to take a side. But qualify your argument with a couple of points from the opposing side. It makes your argument sound more reasoned, and you’ll get extra points for that.
• Don’t freak out over the essay. The grading is subjective, the prompts are quite varied, and it can difficult to raise your score on this section.

The second part of the writing section is the Essay. Before you stress yourself out about it though, the essay is not extremely important. In fact, there are major universities that don’t even look at the essay. They understand that you’re being given a writing prompt at the tail-end of a grueling test, and only given 25 minutes to write a coherent essay. So don’t worry about it too much.

However, its still part of the test, and a strong performance on the essay can make up for a few missed questions in the writing multiple choice. So its worth understanding what they’re looking for.

Structure And Format

First of all, the essay is an argumentative essay. So they want you to take a side, and they want you to prove a point. You’re not comparing two essays, or synthesizing information. You’re arguing a point.

The essay is scored based on how organized your writing is, how well you argue your point, and how fluidly you present your material. It is graded by two graders, who each give you a score from 0-6 So your total score can be from 0-12.

I’ve very rarely seen perfect scores, but it’s not necessary to receive a perfect score. You can score a 10 on the essay, and still score well into the 700’s on the writing section, particularly if you’ve seen a strong performance on the multiple choice. I’ve even seen a 700 for an essay of 3! if the student had gotten a perfect score on the multiple choice.

Timing And Organization

The most difficult part of the essay is the timing. You only get 25 minutes to organize and write it.

I recommend taking 5 minutes to brainstorm your argument. The prompt presents you with both sides. So brainstorm both sides, writing down as many ideas as you can think of, and don’t make any judgments yet.

Then you pick which ones you want to use. You should argue for whichever has stronger examples. However, also take an example from the other side, with which you can qualify your argument. You’ll get extra points for that. If you don’t do that, you argument doesn’t sounds as well-reasoned.

Then make your thesis statement, decide on the order of your essay, and start writing. That should all take five minutes, which leaves you 20 minutes for the actual writing.

If you don’t plan or organize your argument like that, then you can end up arguing yourself in a circle once you start writing. And by the time you’ve done that, you don’t have enough time to go back and re-write your essay.

So take the time to plan. Its better to run out of time with a well-reasoned argument than it is to finish early with a poorly-reasoned one. The only 12 I’ve ever seen was for an essay that the student didn’t even have time to write a conclusion for; she was a superb writer.

Essay Structure

In terms of writing the actual essay, the best way to organize it is by the Claim, Data, Warrant method that is taught in AP English classes.

• Claim is what you think, your argument.
• Data is the evidence, which makes you think that.
• Warrant is the synthesis, why you think your data proves your point.

When you’re writing your body paragraphs, you begin by making a claim. Then you support your claim with your data. The data can be historical or literary examples, but personal examples work just as well.

It’s a nasty urban legend that you need to support your claim with historical or literary examples to get a perfect score. I’ve seen perfect scores that are pure personal example. It’s just important that you have the data to support your claim.

What really separates top scores from middling scores, is your use of Warrant. This is the synthesis, where you demonstrate your organizational and writing abilities by explaining why your data proves your point. The Warrant is what separates a well argued (and high-scoring) essay from an average one.

For Writing Practice

The best way to practice is by reading well-written articles and analyzing them for the Claim, Data, and Warrant. I recommend the editorials in the New York Times, as they use excellent language, and they are generally very well-written and well-argued. So you can look at the editorial and try to find where is the claim, where is the data, and where is the warrant. All three should exist for each point argued.

More generally, looking at other people’s writing is an excellent way to improve your own. So if you’re having trouble with transitions, you can look at how the author uses transitions effectively. Likewise, if you’re struggling with conclusions, you can look for an example of how to write an interesting conclusion without merely repeating your thesis statement and arguments.

Once you understand the essay format, you can practice by planning out and organizing a couple of sample essays. I would advise you to write one complete essay to see the timing and to see how your structure works. After that, you don’t need to actually write out the whole essay, as the prompts are so varied that this isn’t very useful. But just go through the planning process in order to get more comfortable with it.

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