<p>For the second time, I have gotten a 70+ raw score in the writing mc section. However, in both of them, my essay scores were only 7… My friends who get like 500s and low 600s get at least 9s and easily a 10 or 11. It really brings down my writing score by about 50 points… Why am I such a bad writer yet quite proficient in finding errors in sentences?</p>
<p>You might be spending too much thought on grammar and mechanics and not enough on the content and structure of your ideas. Use a book of quotations (Bartlets’ or some other). Open the book, read the quotation and give yourself five minutes to prepare an outline of an essay agreeing or disagreeing with the quote. Don’t write the essay, just outline what points you would make.</p>
<p>Look at your outlines. Do you have at least 3 main ideas? Do you have examples or reasons to support those ideas? What order would you put them in? Are they all clearly related to the quotation? Are they all clearly related to each other? Can you express each main idea in a single sentence? Are they specific or very general? If they are general, can you make them more specific?</p>
<p>Another thought. Readers also look for “smooth progression of ideas”. English teachers call that ‘coherence’, but it’s more than that. Coherence means making sure the reader knows exactly how ideas are related to each other. That’s mainly done by using pronouns properly (If you did well on the MC, you should know about reference and agreement.) using conjunctions (words like consequently, therefore, because, when etc… These words all name kinds of relationships…cause/effect, condition/consequence or if/then, time order, location, amount or degree) and using introductory phrases to sentences. ( In addition, In order to, Beyond that, As a result, etc…again these phrases indicate basic kinds of relationships) Coherence can also come from repeating key words and phrases. Ex…They were amazed at his dress…blah, blah,blah. They were no less amazed at his speech…blah, blah, blah. But neither his dress nor his speech amazed them as much as his attitude…Blah, blah, blah. You can see how that sews the ideas together and makes their relationship clear. A final point about a smooth progression of ideas…Redundancy, empty sentences, unrelated ideas will all slow down the thought or lead the reader off the subject. That can make your core ideas harder to find and follow.Stick to your point, make it and move on to the next.</p>