My Aliso Niguel SAT Prep Branch - Week 6: The Essay

Something I've noticed over time is that many of my students are intimidated by the essay portion of the SAT. It is the first thing they face on the test, and the challenge of the blank page is daunting. With only 25 minutes to write a complete essay, every minute counts. Going up against the SAT essay unprepared is indeed a scary experience, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Like I've mentioned in previous posts, the SAT is a very predictable test, and the essay is no exception. The grading criteria for the essay are the same every time. And while the prompts are not always the same, they do follow a general pattern. That pattern makes it easy for you to actually prepare ahead of time, which means you can start planning your essay before you even take the test. Besides, essay graders are only looking for a few key elements in your essay so that they can give you a score and move on to the next one as quickly as possible. Satisfy their grading checklist and you're good to go.

Before I get into the details of what is on that checklist, let me briefly explain how the essay works. You are given 25 minutes to read the prompt (the question) and then plan and write an essay that answers it. Your essay is graded by two people who each give you a score from 0-6, with 0 meaning you wrote nothing and 6 meaning you wrote an excellent essay. Then your two scores are combined to get your total score out of 12. This total score counts for one third of the writing section score.

Let's consider again the fact that you have 25 minutes to plan and write the essay. This is a very short amount of time, and the graders realize that. They are not expecting a masterpiece or even your best work. Each grader will only spend 1-3 minutes on your essay, grading on an overall impression. Best of all, there is no wrong answer, as long as you stick to the given topic.

Some more good news is that the prompts on the SAT are rather general and allow you to write about almost any example you like. They will always ask you for your opinion about something, usually in the format of a yes or no question. Some example topics might be:

• Do people have to be highly competitive in order to succeed?
• Does adversity lead to self-discovery?
• What motivates people to change?

As you can see, these topics are pretty broad. They are so broad, in fact, that you can come up with examples that fit these kinds of topics even before seeing what the essay question is. Abraham Lincoln is a favorite example (he definitely works for all three questions above), along with Martin Luther King and Einstein. These examples can come from history, science, technology, arts, entertainment, literature, or whatever other field you might know something about. Personal examples can also work, as long as they are relevant and specific. I recommend to all students that they come up with 3 or 4 examples, whether it's a historical figure or a fictional character, and make an index card with some of the most important facts about them. Then they can use this on their essay to impress the reader with how detailed they can be in just short amount of time.

This brings me finally to what the SAT graders are looking for. They evaluate essays based on three criteria: development of point of view, organization, and grammar and style. Essentially you need to state your position and back it up with evidence in an organized, cohesive manner. It all comes down to clarity and specificity. If you can make yourself clear and use specific, detailed examples to back up your point, you're golden.

While this isn't everything there is to know about the SAT essay, it's a good start and should help you improve. If you're looking for some more help with the essay or you have any questions, feel free to email me as always at Neil_Aronson@ivyinsiders.com. Good luck!

Neil Aronson, an Aliso Niguel High School alum, is a rising junior at Tufts University (a little Ivy right outside of Boston) where he's studying International Relations and Entrepreneurial Leadership. This summer he is starting and running a test prep branch through Ivy Insiders, a program offered by Revolution Prep that selects students from top schools who have scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and sends them back to their communities to help kids from their hometown improve their scores. Check back here every Friday for more tips and help on the SAT.