<p>Haz, give up on the length argument. Length does not matter. In fact, part of the difficulty is writing concisely. You received the grade your paper deserves. Accept it and move on. Next time around, make your paper interesting and persuasive. Use rhetoric devices and show how your examples are relevant. </p>
<p>Trust me, I know what it feels like to think your essay was great and then find out that it sucked. The best thing you can do is improve your writing and not let it happen again. I brought my writing score up 110 points in under a month and can now consistently write 7/9 English AP papers. (You may think it impossible to know this for sure, but my English teacher marks standardized english test essays and has become quite accurate in her marking)</p>
<p>If you accept responsibility for the poor grade and do something about it, you will have time to improve your writing before the next SAT date.</p>
<p>I think you may have gone into too much detail with your examples that did not necessarily strengthen your argument. Also, there are “some errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics,” which also falls into the Scoring Guideline for “Score of 4.” And length doesn’t really matter; it’s better to have a shorter and more developed paper than one that uses the full two pages but loses quality in doing so.</p>
<p>You have to be humble enough to accept it when people don’t agree with you. There is obviously a reason why you got this score. Learn from the constructive critisism. You shouldn’t be posting this JUSt so people will agree with you and reassure you that you were wronged. You’re arguing over what people are saying even though you ASKED for their input.</p>
<p>If you still don’t agree…ask your English teacher or ask parents on the Parent’s Forum to read and grade this.</p>
<p>The Columbus example, while probably used by many, is incorrect. Most intelligent people, at that time, knew that the world was round, as the circumference had been calculated by the Greeks quite a few years earlier. Columbus didn’t want to prove anything – he wanted to get rich by opening a new trade route to the orient. I’m not sure how the readers dealt with writers using what is actually an elementary school myth as an example.</p>
<p>Your essay received an 8 because of the following:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You used two adequate examples, instead of two or three substantial or insightful examples. The readers wanted a little more. In particular, the second example was a little weak.</p></li>
<li><p>Your conclusion was too brief. I would recommend at least three sentences.</p></li>
<li><p>The language was good, but it also exhibited some errors. These DO count against you.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I encourage my students to use three good examples in their essays. Their essays typically earned 10-12s on the March 12 exam.</p>
<p>-What exactly in your opinion defines adequate? I used a literary and a historical example and explained it well. You could see the connection I made. I personally think that my graders were seeing too many of these examples.
Also, either people say my R&J is too detailed or my war one is too short. There are only two pages to right your essay.
Didn’t you read my note? Part of the conclusion got cut off. The sentences at the end were educated guesses.
Would you be so sure as to say if my essay were regraded it wouldn’t receive a higher grade? (That’s what I’m doing)
What about the good things in my essay? The transitions? My intro insight? My paragraph level connections? Could it be possible that the graders focused too much on my cutoff conclusion?</p>
<p>Anyways, when they rescore, they rescore the original copy. This will have the cutoff part on it.</p>
<p>Sorry about that rant. Thanks for your input.</p>
<p>When my students were taking the SAT II Writing test, most competent writers received an “8” on the essay, so I don’t consider that a terrible score. With a high score on the multiple choice, students could get a composite score in the high 600’s or low 700’s. I’m not sure if the curve will remain the same on the new SAT writing section.</p>
<p>Do you have a link for the information regarding grammar/usage/spelling not being considered in the score? I know the graders are instructed to ignore poor handwriting, but I don’t believe they can ignore the other items since they are essential to good writing. In haz’s case, there are too many grammar and spelling errors. Just in the first paragraph: two subject/verb agreement errors, wrong use of word “clique” (meant cliche…but the quote is not a cliche or a maxim), two spelling errors, and Romeo and Juliet should be underlined. I believe those types of errors can impact your score.</p>
<p>The quote is a bit of a cliche. People were upset when Columbus said the world was round. The quote is also a maxim, a truth, because the world did jeer when Columbus said this. Romeo and Juliet was underlined both times in the original.</p>
<p>Yeah I did mispell cliche and reconsile (reconcile). There was a subject agreement problem in the 1st paragraph with who and are. Dare is right though in that context. I also said of instead of up in the 3rd paragraph.</p>
<p>That’s four errors! You’d think they allow for four errors, right?</p>
<p>You did not do any analyzing in your essay at all. My teacher always goes… in a persuasive essay with a strong thesis and all, you have to always have “because.” The essay does not have that. You conclude each your body paragraphs by tying in your example with the thesis, but where’s the “because” and proving factors for why that’s true. That’s about it. Actually I made the same mistakes as you and got a 9, so I will be looking to use the same advice I just wrote.</p>
<p>I don’t know why you’re surprised at your grade…there are grammatical errors and some of the sentence are poorly constructed. It’s decent, but not great, no offense. If 8 is the “wrong grade,” what do you believe you deserved?</p>
<p>Finally, some helpful comments. You’re right! I do not analyze. If I were taking this over, I would definately analyze more. I’m not retaking it because of my great math and CR scores. My MC score also made up for the essay grade somewhat. I’m actually quite pleased with my overall score, low 2200’s. No retakes there. I’m just saying, I think my essay deserves a 10.</p>
<p>a 10 would boost me up about 50 points or so.</p>
<p>not really… because the essay only counts for 30% of ur subscore… so it accounts for roughly 30% of the 600 pts u score… i.e. just a shade under 200… that said… a 12 would recieve a 200… 10 would be about 170-180… and so on down the list it is about 20 pts…</p>
<p>of course this is pure extrapolation as a perfect mc + a 10 essay is still an 800…</p>
<p>Hectaonchires: He doesn’t have an into…just a thesis and a point which should have been a body paragraph by itself. In fact, the Columbus point is completely invalid, because Queen Isabella’s advisors (and most of the intellectual community) believed the earth was round…Columbus got all of his information by misinterperting an Arab scholar-he wasn’t a genius.</p>