<p>I have no experience writing the SAT essay so…</p>
<p>When told that you can write about anything, should you pick one area (history, literature, personal, etc.) and then use multiple examples? Or should you pick all three areas for 3 body paragraphs? Or can you pick one area, say personal, and devote all the paragraphs to expounding upon the single event you chose to focus on?</p>
<p>I have a feeling that all three ways could work. But I’m not sure how my teacher will grade it :.</p>
<p>Can you clarify? Do you have a teacher that is asking you to write a practice essay to practice for your SAT but has told you to write about anything?</p>
<p>When you are presented with the actual question on the real test, you may not be able to think of examples from all areas. You will also only have a short time to plan unless once you plan you can whip an essay out very quickly. On the real test you should try to come up with examples from history and literature, and if you have a very good personal example add that as well. Because of that, you should feel comfortable with your ability to construct allusions to different things, including your own past, history, and literature, gracefully. It seems a bit odd that a teacher would give an assignment to practice an SAT essay but give instructions to choose any topic; that is nothing like what the real test would be like, so perhaps I am misunderstanding the question.</p>
<p>If that is the assignment and you are worried about your essay on the actual SAT, I would recommend looking up prompts from other tests that have been released and practicing with those as well. Just being told to write a five-paragraph essay is not, from my point of view, really practice for the SAT- but then, I have to write them all the time. Writing a general essay like that might help you write essays but beyond that, it doesn’t prepare for the on-the-spot thinking into your knowledge of history and literature that will come with a specific prompt on a timed test. :)</p>