Mission Impossible
Made Possible
Writing a 25-minute SAT essay.
by Laura Wilson and Amie Whigham
TWEENS & TEENS News March 2008
The bell rings. Thirty-four English notebooks
close simultaneously. Thirty-four chairs slide
out from under desks across a linoleum floor.
Conversation erupts and the students hastily
make their way toward the door. “And
class, don’t forget that your essays
are due next Monday!”
No teacher ever yells, “And class, don’t
forget that your essays are due in exactly
25 minutes!” A 25-minute, on-the-spot
essay is seemingly an impossible assignment,
but this is exactly what students are asked
to do on the SAT.
The SAT, or scholastic aptitude test, is a
Princeton-based college admission exam with
three components— critical reading,
writing and math— tested over a grueling
four and a half hours. Each component is scored
out of 800, with a perfect composite score
being 2,400.
The writing component involves not only multiple-choice
English grammar questions, but also a 25-minute
persuasive essay in response to a given quotation.
This essay accounts for a full third of the
writing component score. Fortunately, the
SAT essay is far from a mission impossible.
The Keys to SAT Success
Although the SAT essay topic is unknown until
test day, it is not unpredictable. The SAT
asks similar essay questions from year to
year, using only different quotations. Boiling
down these essay questions into various themes
helps students know what to expect on test
day.
The First Key to SAT Success: Know the core
essay themes. These themes include heroism,
sacrifice, truth, choices and technology,
among others.
The Second Key to SAT Success: Practice!
Read old SAT essay questions, which are available
online at www.sat.org and in The Official
SAT Study Guide (CollegeBoard). Then practice
writing essays that respond to the core themes,
creating details and organizing responses.
Such practice sessions allow you to come to
the SAT essay fully prepared, with virtually
pre-written essay responses for each theme.
The Third Key to SAT Success: Learn the phrase
“little children have play sets.”
This mnemonic device helps students remember
what to write about, ensuring that not one
of their precious 25 minutes is wasted.
The “l” of “little”
stands for literature. All students should
know at least two works of literature—
classic literature, not romance novels or
cheap thrillers— inside and out, page
for page. This doesn’t necessarily mean
that students should read these pieces every
week. Rather, use the Internet! SparkNotes
is an excellent online resource to “brush
up on old books.” The essay is graded
for depth of knowledge, not superficial overviews.
The three works that we at WilsonPrep recommend
are Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
(Grand Central Publishing), John Steinbeck’s
Of Mice and Men (Penguin) and William Shakespeare’s
Macbeth (Washington Square Press). The universal
themes in each of these works correspond with
the core essay topics for the SAT.
The “c” of “children”
stands for current events. One month before
the SAT, students should read TIME or Newsweek,
and pick out some interesting people or events.
Current events help make an essay stand out,
as the essay topic addresses current adult
issues of which the grader is sure to be aware.
However, keep your current event discussion
informative rather than superficial. It is
not enough to say there is a war in Iraq;
this is a superficial, vague statement. But,
if you discuss football star Pat Tillman’s
decision to give up a million dollar contract
to serve the American people in Afghanistan,
then the essay is elevated to informative.
Typically, the more details the better!
The “h” of “have”
stands for history. History is full of examples
that fit into essays. Often, students do throw
in history as a supporting example. Yet, though
there are thousands of years to choose from,
students tend to write about the exact same
moments, including World War II, Martin Luther
King, Jr.’s assassination and the Civil
War. Readers are not impressed when reading
another WWII essay, especially when the essay
simply says, “The Holocaust was bad.”
Once again: superficial.
Students should choose three historical moments,
such as a war, an era and a historical figure,
to know inside and out. Names, dates, specific
happenings— all of this can be found
online with a simple search. Don’t waste
time flipping through that 20-pound history
book. The three historical moments should
not be the aforementioned pedestrian (fantastic
SAT word) topics. This means no Hitler and
no slavery. Rather, students should write
about the Enlightenment, Renaissance, Cold
War or Depression. These topics are rarely
written about in detail, causing an essay
revolving around one of these topics to grab
a scorer’s attention. Again, the more
details the better.
The “p” of “play”
and the “s” of “sets”
stand for personal and sports, respectively.
Students should not be afraid to throw in
personal examples and sports examples if these
fit an essay topic. The key to making these
examples work is, again, lots and lots of
detail. Students should paint a picture for
readers. In other words, even though an essay
reader wasn’t present when the student
was 8 years old and playing T-ball, with imagery
and details, a reader may understand how and
why the experience is relevant to the essay
question.
The Fourth Key to SAT Success: Pay attention
to the details. Perhaps you’ve noticed,
essays should be packed with juicy details.
This also helps lengthen your SAT essay, and
studies have shown that longer essays receive
higher grades than shorter essays. Therefore,
both pages of paper given on test day should
be filled.
In committing a small list of ideas to memory,
students waste no time thinking about what
to write when test day arrives. This makes
writing and editing a complete essay—
including an introduction, supporting examples
and a conclusion— in response to an
esoteric, indecipherable quote in only 25
minutes, quite possible for students. It also
lowers students’ stress levels significantly!
By arriving to the test knowing what to expect
(one of 15 themes) and by having a concise
list of examples to draw from (“little
children have play sets”), 25 minutes
is plenty of time.
Extra Tips to Ensure SAT Success
•Throw in a few vocabulary words. Choose
these words beforehand, and work them into
your essay.
•Use one rhetorical question per essay.
Why are rhetorical questions powerful? Because
they lead the reader to the main point quickly
and reflect good writing. One question will
do, though. Too many questions make the writing
sound philosophical, prompting the reader
to get lost.
•Include a definition of terms in your
essay. The core essay themes are ambiguous
if they aren’t defined. If the essay
question asks about success, define success.
•Don’t forget transitions! Graders
like a smooth, easy read, meaning no jumping
from topic to topic. If you’re talking
about Galileo in one paragraph, and a grandma
in the next, make the transition. “On
a more personal note” is an excellent
transitional phrase to lead into a personal
example.
The biggest key to scoring high on the SAT
essay is to break free of English-class essay
writing. English-class essay writing is a
style, structure and tone that has been developed,
reinforced and ingrained into high schoolers’
brains. The process involves a rough draft,
revised draft and final draft, written over
the span of a week. This sort of writing provides
no help for the SAT. But, as it is all they
know, most high schoolers approach the SAT
essay in exactly this manner and write surprisingly
similar essays.
Because of the inner workings of the normal
curve and standardized test scoring, these
similar essays can receive grades no higher
than average. As a result, to get high scores
on the SAT essay, students must adequately
prepare for the task. Practice for the SAT
essay questions to break out of classroom-structured
writing habits. In the process, elevate your
essay, regardless of your writing level, to
above average by following the proven tips
and techniques for SAT essay success.
Laura Wilson, president of WilsonPrep
and WilsonDailyPrep, wrote with Amie Whigham,
Write the 25-Minute SAT Essay Right (WilsonPrep).
Books will soon be available online at www.wilsondailyprep.com
and in bookstores. For more information, visit
www.wilsondailyprep.com or e-mail laura@wilsonprep.com
