Ladies and gentleman, grab your pencils and take some notes - you're about to learn everything you need to know for the SAT Writing section.
When the SAT Writing section begins, you don’t want to be stuck wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into. Simply put, you should not only be able to write a killer essay in twenty-five minutes, you should also understand the basics of writing like grammar, usage, mechanics, word choice, coherence, organization, idiom, subject verb agreement, etc.
You know – all that junk you slept through during English last year.
Think you’re ready for the SAT Writing section? We’ll see. No snoozing allowed.
SAT Writing Basics
This section on the SAT, will take you about one hour to finish, and can earn you between 200 and 800 points, which accounts for one third of your SAT score. I know, I know. That’s a lot of points to stake on grammar and word choice, but what can you do?
Here’s the good news: the average SAT Writing Skills score for 2008 was right around a 494, so most of your fellow SAT-takers are getting about half right, half wrong.
You’ll have two sections on this baby: One short essay that will take you about 25 minutes, and a multiple-choice section that will take you 35 minutes. The multiple-choice section has three different types of questions to answer: identifying sentence errors, improving sentences, and improving paragraphs. Here’s the breakdown of what those SAT question types are.
SAT Writing Question Type 1: Identifying Sentence Errors
- Work on these first. Because they are shorter, these are the easiest questions on the Writing Skills section and require less time than the other two types.
- They get harder. As you answer them in order, which you will if you’re test-savvy, they will become increasingly more difficult. So it’s good to get your feet wet on the first ones, because you’ll have an easier time getting them right. (Getting things right = a higher score.)
- What they measure: These are designed to test your knowledge of diction, grammar, sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, proper word usage, wordiness and idiom (talking up a storm, bull in a china shop, etc.). You won’t be asked to identify grammatical terms, nor will your capitalization or spelling be measured, although it wouldn’t hurt, right?
- Question set-up: Each question is a sentence with five underlined words or phrases in it. Your job is to figure out which underlined section has the error. If there is no error, you’ll have a “no error” choice. Easy, huh?
Identifying Sentence Errors Example:
Ordinarily, you’d see parts of the sentence underlined with a letter placed beneath each choice, but since that’s impossible in this format, I will italicize the options for you and list them underneath. All you’ll have to do is bubble in the corresponding circle on the real PSAT.
The fields have soil so rich that corn growing here commonly had stood more than six feet tall. No error
A. so rich that
B. growing here
C. had stood
D. tall
E. No error
The correct choice is C.
SAT Writing Question Type 2: Improving Sentences
- Work on these second. Because these are shorter than the improving paragraphs questions, these should be the questions you work on second. Remember, you can’t get points for a question you don’t answer, so start easy and then move on.
- They get harder. Again, the first sentence-improving questions you see will be easier than the last ones, so answer them in order so you get some practice.
- What they measure: Here, you’ll be tested on understanding clarity, how words fit together, proper placement of parts of speech, and the like. These are not testing your creativity, so if the answer choice you’ve selected changes the meaning of the sentence, choose again! That’s the wrong answer.
- Question set-up: Each question will be a sentence with one longer underlined portion. Your job is to decide if that underlined portion sounds great the way it is, or if you can improve it by choosing on of the five choices listed below.
Improving Sentences Example:
Here’s a hint for solving: if the underlined portion sounds great the way it is, choose answer “A”. “A” will always be an exact replica of the underlined part of the sentence. Again, since I can’t underline, I’ll italicize the portion in question for you.
Certain shipwrecks have a particular fascination for those people which have a belief in finding the treasure in them.
A. which have a belief in finding the treasure in them
B. that belief there is treasure to be found in them
C. who believe they hold treasure and that they can find it
D. who believe that there is treasure to be found in them
E. who believe about treasure to be found in them
The correct choice is D.
