What is my essay missing?

ursawarrior
Sun, 07 Jul 2013 12:01:22 +0000

Your fatal mistake is that you make use of scenarios (if people do this …). In your case, you use “starters” and “professions”. This method may be fine in TOEFL, but not in SAT.

SAT requires a detailed real life example, even at the expense of topic sentence and explanation. I did say real life, not real. You can write about your uncle, or an imaginary friend named Bob, or make Galileo do whatever you want (in which case you only have to study his background). So think about what you have read or encountered which may be useful to your essay, then drive it your way to fit the prompt.

You can see my essay, on the same prompt, here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1520014-good-essay-collection-topic.html
Note that I only use a kindergarten introduction and jump straight into the example.
I got a 11 in spite of, and because of, that. (paradoxical huh >.<)