Essay
The Essay is 30% of your Writing score. It is generally given as the first section of the entire test. This section is 25 minutes long. The essay is not expected to be a final polished paper. The objective is to write your point of view on a specific issue, and the essay will be your written response to a prompt.
In your essay in the writing section, scoring is done by two SAT graders who will each give a score on a scale of 1-6. The essay must be legible and written with a number 2 pencil. The two scores are summed to give a final score of between 2 and 12.
In order to achieve the highest score possible on the essay, your essay must have plenty of detail, be written with correct English, and display your mastery of the English language. Also, there is some evidence that longer essays score higher. Be sure to provide examples in any of your writing and as much supporting detail as possible for your point of view.
When you are presented with the question in the writing section, first identify what is being asked. There will usually be two points of view that could be chosen for your essay. Identify these two points of view and select the one for which you can provide the most supporting detail. Take a minute to plan your writing and then begin writing. Be sure your essay has a good introduction and conclusion.
Multiple Choice
The multiple choice questions are 70% of your Writing score. There are three types of questions in this section: error identification in sentences, sentence improvement, and paragraph improvement.
The Identifying Sentence Errors questions are the simplest on the Writing test. For these questions, the student must locate the word producing the source of the error or indicate that the sentence has no error. Here are some things to look out for in error identification of sentences:
Subject-verb agreement
Pronoun/Antecedent Agreement
Verb Tenses
Adjectives, Adverbs
Verbals
Parallel Structure
Idiomatic Expressions in English
Some of the trickier questions in this section include subjects that sound plural, but are singular. Practice these in your preparation and always keep in mind what is performing the action in the sentence.
The Sentence Improvement section of the Writing test requires the student to select an acceptable fix to an awkward sentence. In these questions, the sentence/grammar may or may not be incorrect, but the sentence could be improved in some way. For each of these multiple choice questions, one of the choices will always be no change to the original sentence. When completing these questions, it is helpful to first determine if an error exists and then think of how to fix the error before looking at the answer choices. The most common errors you will encounter on this exam are errors in parallel structure, modifiers, and compound structure.
The Paragraph Improvement section of the Writing test usually has about 6 questions. The purpose is to test your understanding of how to logically organize ideas. You will be shown a poorly written paragraph and asked a series of questions on how the paragraph could be improved. The sentences within the paragraph will be numbered. Some questions will refer you back to the numbered sentences, so you can identify the sentence in question quickly. The questions you encounter could be about meaning, structure and word usage in the paragraph. This section will cover all the areas of grammar and usage that are covered by the sentence error and sentence improvement sections.
If you are looking for help with your SAT Exam preparation, we do offer private tutoring services. All SAT tutors are qualified and have successfully coached many English learners.
