How to Write an Essay for SAT

SAT, or the Standard Admission Test (also called Scholastic Assessment Test in the past), is amongst the exams which makes many students worry. Most colleges in the U.S. and some colleges overseas (especially American universities abroad) admit students according to their SAT results. As it is well known, there are two types of SAT: SAT I and SAT II. In SAT I there are three sections that you will need to pass: Mathematics, Critical Reading, and Writing. The writings section consists of two sub-sections, the first one of which is writing an essay on a given topic. The main goal of the SAT essay is to demonstrate your ability to develop a view on an important and actual topic which is given in the assignment. You must support your view by using appropriate and reliable arguments. In this sense, writing an essay for SAT is not so different from other essays which are part of exams. You should be very fast in thinking and writing, and also be able to demonstrate good sides of your reasoning skills.

How to write an essay for SAT – essential tips

Preparation

Preparation is always the key to success. You cannot merely go to the exam and take it by using your wonderful skills. Especially for the writing part, you should practice writing an essay at least a dozen of times. We recommend you to practice writing the essay every two days. Write about a wide range of topics. The main goal is to adapt yourself to the time framework of the test. Also, keep in mind that you will probably be a little bit tired when you start writing the essay.

Manage your time

You will have 25 minutes for writing the essay. The first five minutes you could allocate for planning the essay in your mind. Then you will have fifteen minutes for writing the essay, and five minutes more for style and grammar check.

Understand your assignment

If you think that you could start writing once the task has been assigned, you are completely wrong. It is quite possible to misunderstand the task. Every single word of the excerpt is important. Having read the excerpt, you need to read the assignment. Do not omit either of them.

Example

For example, you have a prompt referring to the phenomenon called conformism, or human need to belong to a group or a community. There's absolutely no need to go in the direction set by the assignment. For example, you can express your opinion on why people gather in groups (for social and psychological reasons). Then you can go further by explaining positive and negative sides of such a process. At any rate, the more imagination you have, the better score you will receive.

Select the most important

You will probably have many ideas once you know the requirements of the assignment. You should select only the most important information. One example from your personal experience will work. At any rate, you should focus your essay on one main event, feeling or experience. There is no time for more than this.

Develop a strong thesis

This means you should have a clear and precisely defined thesis. Place it in the last sentence(s) of the introduction. Support your thesis with two or three arguments, if possible. You can restate the thesis in the concluding part of the essay.

Terminology

Use more specialized terminology if you think this will help you. In all cases, the readers will assess it positively provided you have employed all the terms appropriately.

As you see, you can write an excellent essay even if you are not certain how to write an essay for SAT. Good preparation is really the key to success, but you should use your creativity as well as ambition in order to succeed.