Worried about the writing portion of the ACT or SAT? You can prepare yourself by focusing on a few basic strategies for essay writing. Follow this list of tips to make your test essay stand out from the rest!
– Write a longer essay. I know that this is probably difficult for students who struggle with essay exams, but if you practice writing a SAT essay, and do it more than once, you will likely do better on the SAT essay portion on test day than if you didn’t practice at all. So get to writing!
– To save time, write a short introduction and a short conclusion. Realize that you only have 25 minutes to write the essay, so you can’t spend more than 10 minutes total (5 minutes each) on both the introduction and conclusion. The body paragraphs will earn you the majority of your score.
– Use a range of sentence structures when you write. Varying sentence structures can make your essay much more readable to the SAT essay graders, and increase your chances of earning a higher score.
– Stick to the topic. This sounds obvious, but many students forget to stay on topic. According to the College Board (the company to blame for the current version of the SAT, including the introduction of the SAT writing portion), “an off-topic essay will receive a score of zero.” Also, you do not have to write in any particular style. As long as you stick to the topic, you can choose the tone that suits you best.
– Use a few interesting words. Your essay doesn’t need to be chock-full of long, complicated words, but it should have at least a few. Use obstinate instead of stubborn, ambivalent instead of unsure, or disingenuous instead of dishonest.
– Watch out for spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes. If you have one or two of these mistakes, it is no big deal. However, if you have more than a few, your score may suffer.
In conclusion, make sure you prep well for the essay portion. If you need further SAT help, the Study Hut is here to help you. Call one of our tutoring centers (located in Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach) to schedule an appointment now!
Manhattan Beach: (310) 546-2408
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