What Skills Does the Essay Test?
The folks at The College Board and the people they hire
as readers are not unfair, and they’re not sadists. They know you’re
most likely 16 or 17 years old. They know their test causes a lot
of hand-wringing. And they know you have 25 minutes to write an
essay on a topic you’ve never seen before. Here’s what they expect:
A first draft
That’s it. They don’t expect highly polished, finished
writing. That would be impossible to produce in 25 minutes. They
just want a first draft. Think of an SAT essay as an answer you’d
give to an in-class final exam in your English class, rather than
a term paper you’ve worked on for weeks on end. As you’ll see, the
essay is easier than a final exam essay, because
you’re not expected to demonstrate a semester’s worth of knowledge.
More on this later.
While The College Board doesn’t give you a neat little
list of what your essay should include, we do know how the essay
will be graded. With that knowledge in hand, we can tell you that
your essay should feature the following six qualities:
- Precise use of language
- Clarity of expression
- Sustained focus
- Logical and coherent presentation of ideas
- Ample development of a point of view
- Use of clear reasoning and appropriate evidence
Let’s define each of these qualities in a little more
detail. We’ll spend most of the rest of the book giving you the
essential concepts and strategies you’ll need to achieve these six
broad goals. For now, let’s make sure you know what is expected
Precise Use of Language
Precision means being accurate and exact.
We’re talking about your old friends here: grammar and usage.
Grammar. Know and follow the rules. For
example, don’t shift your pronouns:
One knows that you can’t avoid grammar on the SAT
You know you can’t avoid grammar on the SAT Writing
One knows one can’t avoid grammar on the SAT Writing
Usage. Use words properly. For example,
don’t write adverse (which refers to being opposed
to a situation) when you mean averse (which refers
to being opposed to an attitude).
Don’t panic if all this grammar and usage talk is confusing.
The Essential Concepts section that follows is a focused review
and explanation of the relevant grammatical and usage topics you’ll
need to do well on the essay.
Furthermore—and repeat this mantra to yourself nightly
into a mirror—you can make a few minor usage and grammar errors
and still get the highest possible score!
Clarity of Expression
This is partly a function of following the rules of language
(i.e., grammar and usage). However, and more important, clarity
of expression is about clear thought.
Think of it this way: writing is like sending a radio
transmission. Your brain is the transmitter. Your thoughts are the
signal. The person reading your essay is the receiver. There are
only three ways your signal can be garbled.
The signal is garbled inside you, the transmitter.
You transmit fine, but the signal is mush. In other words, you understand
the rules of language, but you can’t seem to produce a coherent
signal is strong but gets garbled in transmission. In other words,
you know what you want to say, but you have trouble using the rules
of language to say it.
signal is mush and it also gets garbled in transmission. You have
problems both in organizing your thoughts and in using the rules
Again, don’t worry. Our essential concepts and strategies
will alleviate all of these problems. You’ve come to the right place!
You only have 25 minutes to formulate, plan,
write, and edit a decent first draft of a persuasive essay. You
have no time or space to wander off on tangents; you must devote
all your precious time and space to the task at hand. Don’t get
cute in your writing: “cute” entails taking unnecessary risks.
When you think “SAT essay,” think of a well-organized
nightly news segment, not a convoluted soap opera plot.
Logical and Coherent Presentation of Ideas
Your essay needs to flow. You need to take a position
that is supported by reasons and reinforced by examples. Each sentence
should follow naturally from the last, and each paragraph should
build on or add to the previous one.
We’ll provide you with a process that will allow you to
write excellent first-draft essays that flow logically and coherently.
Ample Development of a Point of View
You can’t simply state a position without backing it up. Ample
development means bringing together several lines of evidence.
The more types of evidence you bring to bear from various parts
of life, the stronger and more persuasive your essay will be.
You’ll see how all this works as we go through a practice
essay in slow motion.
Use of Clear Reasoning and Appropriate Evidence
It is crucial that you back up your argument with appropriate
evidence, which can be defined as anything you’ve read,
experienced, observed, or heard about.
The take-home message here is that all types
of relevant evidence and examples are equally valuable in the eyes
of the readers. You may have heard that you must provide hoity-toity
literary examples to get a high score. To use a hoity-toity word,
that is simply tosh (that is to say, “total nonsense”).
How unfair would this test be if only those of you who
happened to have read and memorized highbrow literature or esoteric
scientific theory could get a high score? Remember, the essay is
an assessment of how well you use written language to create an
What you say doesn’t matter nearly as
much as how well you say it and how well
you organize it.
Using a quote from Shakespeare or a reference to quantum
physics inappropriately, or in a way that doesn’t further the argument
or support a point, will not help your essay; in fact, it will hurt
it. However, using an appropriate anecdote from your daily life
will help, not hurt. It’s not the status of the evidence you use
that matters—it’s the relevance of that piece of evidence to the
overall flow and structure of your argument.