Scoring a perfect SAT essay score is tough, but not impossible. You don’t have to be an outstanding writer to get a perfect score on SAT essays, either; that perfect 12 is possible, even for an average student.
When you write an SAT essay, you’re given 25 minutes during the SAT test to read the question, create an outline, and write. How can you write perfect SAT essays? By knowing a few tricks about how SAT essays are graded.
Two graders score each SAT essay. Each grader scores the SAT essay on a scale from 0-6. Zero scores are for people who leave the page blank, or who don’t answer the question at all. Therefore, if you even attempt to answer the essay, you can get a 2 – 1 point from each grader.
Most decent SAT essay writers can score an 8 (an average of 4 from each grader). So how do you get a perfect 6 from each SAT essay grader, and get that elusive perfect SAT essay 12 score?
Follow these steps:
1. The week before the SAT, jot down two or three inspirational stories from your own life. Think about times that you overcame an obstacle. The themes used for SAT essays are pretty common–perseverance, diversity, making a difference, respecting change, and so forth all come up as topics for SAT essays. If you have a “hook” in your head already about an example that applies to your personal life, you can get perfect SAT essays and save yourself some time. On SAT day, just mold the essay to meet the SAT essay top to help score perfect SAT essays.
2. Introduction: restate the question and, most important, state your thesis VERY CLEARLY in the first paragraph to get perfect SAT essays. Without the clear thesis in the FIRST PARAGRAPH, you cannot get a 6.
3. For the next paragraph, start with “For instance,” and then a statement connected to your thesis. the rest of the paragraph should SUPPORT YOUR STATEMENT. An example:
Thesis: “Technology can be very useful in improving our lives, but good old fashioned hard work builds character.
First paragraph sentence: “For instance, when an ice storm disabled power to our house for 10 days a few years ago, I learned the importance of my grandparents’ advice on how to live simply.” And then give details on this example.
4. For the third paragraph, repeat what you did in the second paragraph for a perfect SAT essay score.
5. Conclusion: tie your conclusion DIRECTLY TO YOUR THESIS AND THE SAT ESSAY TOPIC. If you fail to do this, you will lose a critical point.
6. Length: make sure your perfect SAT essay is about 400-425 words, or one and a half pages. You may think this is unimportant, but it is CRUCIAL. Don’t go over two pages.
The person grading the SAT essays is at home, reading a scanned image of your essay. if it’s more than two pages, they may down grade you.
7. Handwriting: write CLEARLY and LEGIBLY. Again–the grader is reading a scanned copy of your essay on a computer from home. Difficulty reading your essay could hurt your chances of getting perfect SAT essays.
Follow this advice and your chances of perfect SAT essays zooms through the roof.
