<p>I see a lot of kids posting on essays and just want to throw in my 2 bits, just my gut sense, not researched and could be dead wrong. I don’t know that I’d spend a lot of time trying to improve my essay score if I were in your shoes. It is very subjective. If you are a good solid student who writes well, you have a great shot at an 8. I did look up the grading scale BTW. Getting higher than that will be hard and it may fall to the people grading it. I think they do an outstanding job in being fair with it but I think you could write a great essay and still get an 8 or if you’re lucky a 10. And if you’re really lucky, you’ll get an 11 or 12. Plus it’s only worth a portion of your writing score. I think it is wiser to focus on improving the multiple choice sections because those answers are objective. there is one right answer for each of those and you either get it right or you get it wrong. By analyzing your errors and practice, practice, practice, you have a better shot at pulling up your scores.</p>