Thank you
No. SAT essays have a strict format. If you use a personal experience example, that paragraph may be more “narrative,” but literary and historical examples are probably better.
Intro (start broad, funnel in towards thesis)
First example (literary, historical, or personal experience)
Second example (literary, historical, or personal experience)
Third example, if you have time (literary, historical, or personal experience)
Conclusion (start narrow, funnel towards broad)
Nope. You definitely cannot. It’s a persuasive essay. @bodangles gave a pretty common structure, but I actually prefer a 2-example structure (it allows for more fully-developed body paragraphs–you have to write pretty small to fit three fully-developed body grafs in just 2 pages, imo).
You can obviously write a narrative for your essay. Whether or not you’ll like your essay score is a different question…
When in doubt, trust the blue book! Page 120: narrative essay that received a score of 6. The topic was about whether everything has a perfect solution or if there is a “however,” the person wrote about how he/she is a perfectionist and that it gave her a lot if bad stuff but also some good stuff (using his/her studying for AP tests as an example).
The other 6 essay example was historical facts. So I would say do what you think fits the topic best, and if you can tie it into the topic then you’re set!
Also, the 3- or 2- paragraph setups are guidelines, but the personal narrative in question had an intro, 1 (long-ish) body paragraph, and a conclusion. So, again, do what works best for you in the circumstances.
In my experience, the Blue Book, as essential as it is, is not very helpful for essays. Essays written like the top-scoring essays in the Blue Book don’t tend to receive top scores, unfortunately.