hey guys i was wondering do you guys have any tips or advice when it comes to writing an essay on the sat, now i can write an essay but its take me about an hour or so, but on the sat you have only 30 minutes. the reason i ask this is because i want to do really good on the sat so i can get into a good college. 

 

thanks guys. 

Don't rush, plan out what you're writing before you actually write it. Some tips I used when I wrote essays, they worked good for me. If you rush and go too fast, you'll get a bad grade and that's not fun

The SAT essay really doesn't measure your ability to write a good essay. It measures your ability to write something that at first glance has the appearance of a good essay. The graders are paid by the essay, and don't spend much time on them; your essay should then have a very easily identifiable structure, with examples plainly spelled out such that the graders can tell you wrote a properly structured essay (i.e. intro paragraph, 2 or 3 example paragraphs, conclusion) with as little effort as possible. It's not a time to be very creative (this is in contrast to, say, AP essays: those are graded to a rubric, but graders are actually allowed to spend time on them and you actually do have to write a decent essay for a good score).

When I did my SAT's the essay was the first portion we did, so make sure you're fully awake and on your game on the day of the test, so do whatever you need to do to make sure you're awake & aware, coffee, cold shower, etc. Other than that, like the other posts have said they're really only measuring your ability to write within the time constraints they give you, they're really not looking for anything too fancy or over the top. 

 

The best way to do well is to study leading up to the test, but when your within a day or two of the test, simply chill out. There's no need to be stressed out, just do the best you can & things should turn out just fine

In my opinion, the best ways to prepare for the essay are to practice writing sample prompts in 25 minutes, commonly write with proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling anywhere (unless it's a text, because you get charged based on how many characters you enter), and to take the full online SAT test on the College Board website to give yourself a base score.

 

I do recommend studying the exam a little bit before taking it on their website, as you will be given that exam only, and you have to take the whole exam to see your essay score.

Okay well although the sat is five months from now it gives me plenty of time to study I still worry a little because I think, wow what if I don't make a good enough score, but I think I'll make it.

also remember to answer your question thoroughly and its good to rephrase the question in your answer.

also remember to answer your question thoroughly and its good to rephrase the question in your answer.

This as well: don't leave parts of the question unaddressed.

It might help as well to come up with some fairly generic examples in advance: things which you have some idea how you'd adapt them to a bunch of topics. You don't really need all that many, since you only need 3 examples on the test and they really don't have to be the most connected to the topic, and having potential examples in mind beforehand saves time on the test.

just follow this basic structure and you will be fine.

 

Intro:

• status quo

• thesis

• list all the examples you are gonna use (road map)

 

Write 3 paragraphs

each starting with a topic sentence

 

Conclusion:

• thesis & road map 

• what people should do or what people should learn from this particular thingy

 

* DO NOT use personal experiences. Some people say that it's okay, but it's actually not. You WILL be marked down.