Update: Sorry for the delay guys! I’ve been having some security issues and technical problems with the servers that have been causing me major problems. I wasn’t even going to post again until next week, but I know a lot of you guys are taking the Big test tomorrow, so I thought I’d quickly get out a few posts tonight to make up for lost time. I’m going to just get some main points across in the next few posts. For those of you not taking tomorrow’s test, look for significant updates and revisions to these posts in the future. If anything confuses you tonight, post a comment, and I’ll try to address the topics more thoroughly in a response.
In my last post I talked a little bit about the Essay and some of the superficial things that matter. Basically what I wrote about yesterday is how to get an average essay – one that’ll pretty much assure you a score of 8. Today I want to talk a little bit about how to get your essay to the 10-12 score range. So what makes a good essay??
First Things First: Your Position
Let’s get some of the obvious out of the way first. The first thing you’re going to have to do is decide your position on the topic. Each topic has an inherent yes-side and a no-side. For example, turn to page 283 of the Official SAT Study Guide (the Big Blue Book). The essay prompt first brings up the debate as to whether or not technology has made our lives better. Then the assignment asks, “Do changes that make our lives easier not necessarily make our lives better?” So, for this prompt, you’re basically going to have to take a positions as to whether technology (or more broadly change) does or does not make our lives easier.
Whatever position you decide to take – the yes side or the no side – doesn’t really matter. It’ll be entirely up to you. This decision will be based mostly on which side your sources/evidence more naturally supports, but we’ll get a little more into this later.
The Most Important Part: The Motive
I know that in high school they teach you that the thesis is the most important part of an essay. However, when you get to college, most good expository writing classes will focus mostly on an essay’s motive.
So what is an essay’s motive? The motive of an essay is too complicated of a topic to cover entirely in this one post, but I can at least show you how to superficially produce a decent motive – since we know the superficial things matter on the SAT. While an essay’s thesis answers the question of “What,” its motive address the question, “why.” It’s what makes your essay significant, and any serious writer should address this question first.
The average high school student will jump into the essay with a thesis, something like “Technology makes our lives easier because…” This will make for a very bland and boring essay. Readers, especially SAT graders, want something interesting to read. They’ll have read thousands of essay that say the same thing before they even read yours. That’s why you need to first engage the reader by addressing why he or she should care in the first place, or why your essay is different. You can only do this by getting by the obvious. This is what the motive is all about.
Show the grader something more than the obvious (or at least pretend to).
You may be wondering, “How can I do this if I don’t know more about the topic than the average high school student?” Ah, this is where the superficial part comes in. Once, you’ve decided the position you’re going to take on the topic, you want to introduce a special word into your essay: ostensible. If you don’t know what ostensible, or ostensibly, means, look it up right now and add it to your vocabulary knowledge base. It’s a good SAT word to know anyway. It simply means outwardly seeming or appearing to be. Applying this one word to your introduction will help for two reasons: first, it’ll show that you have a command of SAT vocabulary and second, it’ll make your essay appear more interesting because you offering something more than the obvious, meaning better than the average SAT essay.
So, again, here’s the average student’s introduction to the essay:
“Technology is does make our lives easier because…”
Notice, there’s no motive. Now here’s how you’ll apply a motive:
“While ostensibly technology makes our lives better, in reality technology only makes our lives more difficult.….
Which introduction appears to be a more interesting read?
Notice that not only does your sentence have a motive, but it also has an added level of structural sophistication with two different clauses and applies some SAT vocabulary. The best part is that it also leads naturally into a solid thesis. Your next sentence could now introduce the examples or sources you’re going to employ in the essay and reiterate your main point: “The climactic ending in the Great Gatsby, the protagonists anguish in the Catcher in the Rye, and the inevitable conclusion of the Bay of Pigs fiasco all attest to the fact that technology that promises to make our lives easier, do not necessarily make our lives better”….or something like that.
This method can be applied to any essay topic. Notice that there’s no flower prose or unnecessary filler? It cuts straight to the point but does so in a more appealing way. It also takes out element of writer’s block because it’s a methodical way in which you develop your introduction without wasting time brainstorming.
Now I’ll briefly talk about your body paragraphs and sources…
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10 Responses to “How to Write the Perfect 12-Point SAT Essay, Even if You Suck at Writing (Part 2)”
Comments
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May 9th, 2008 at 3:40 am
I wish I had read this earlier…
Great advice.
I’m going to check out your whole site in a couple of weeks. Thanks, really.
June 6th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Hey thanks man,
Just in time for the “big test”! This is great stuff.
June 29th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
wow great advice!!
thank you!!
Now I’ll briefly talk about your body paragraphs and sources…
where are the body paras!! haah
ill be looking forward to the body!
thank you!
July 15th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Absolutely brilliant post. Thanks for the tips - I’ll definitely be using them when I take the test.
July 28th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Please post a Part 3!!
This is some invaluable information for normally excellent writers who just can’t perfom as well under a time limit and pressure, like me.
August 6th, 2008 at 5:23 am
thanks!
it really helped.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:41 am
Do you still visit this blog? Any further posts about the essay would really help.
November 28th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Now I’ll briefly talk about your body paragraphs and sources… ?
Can you do that now, please? :p
November 30th, 2008 at 3:53 am
Hello, Do you have a part 3?
November 30th, 2008 at 4:19 am
Oh, and I want to thank you so much for all this advice you’ve posted up for us!
Can you provide any tips for sentence variety and more of what the graders are looking for in the essay?