<p>The writing is typically my strongest section. I feel like my essay was horrible and I wasn’t expecting anything more than an 8. If I were to really work on improving the essay for the March SAT, how much could that increase my score? If I were to get a 10 or higher on the essay, how much would my score change? I am aiming for the 2000s. Any other tips on how to push my score up to the 2000s would be great.</p>
<p>Take a look at the scoring section in the Blue Book. Use the grammar subscore you got and then check what would happen if you got a 10. </p>
<p>Some advice from an English teacher and tutor: avoid being boring. Your readers are human beings facing a ton of these essays, and will be grateful for relief from the crushing boredom. Use examples that are specific and are not the very first examples that pop into your head when you read the prompt, b/c those are exactly the same ones everyone else is going to think of. Also, some MIT professor did a study of essay scoring on the SAT and determined that a) length matters; b) using fancy vocabulary (even when you’re not totally sure what the word means) helps (guy’s name is Les Perelman, if you feel like Googling).</p>
<p>I have the same problem. My writing is 650, with an essay score of 7. I’ve realized that I’m totally neglecting practicing for the essay, which is smt you might want to do. Keeping time is an essential factor here, it’s important to adapt to time as you write real like essays.</p>
<p>I would agree the length matters. It’s bullcrap because I wrote a 12 worthy essay, but since I used only a personal experience and it was only 1 and a half pages long, those idiots gave me an 8 instead of an 11/12. I used big vocab which helps too!</p>
<p>Essay alone cannot save you. It’s only 30% or so of your grade and 12 essays are rarer than you think so it’s better to bid on your MCs. Since a computer is marking your MCs and because a lot of practice can help you improve, study your MCs intensively!</p>