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SAT essay archetypes

 August 2009  edited January 2  in SAT Preparation

I have compiled every SAT essay prompt administered by the College since the essay was introduced in 2005. Because the prompts are so generic, several archetypes seem to have emerged. Could it be possible to write an essay before seeing the prompt?

Individuality

--Following the Crowd

Do people need to compare themselves with others in order to appreciate what they have?
Are widely held views often wrong, or are such views more likely to be correct?
Is there any value for people to belong only to a group or groups with which they have something in common?
Is it always best to determine one's own views of right and wrong, or can we benefit from following the crowd?
Is it more valuable for people to fit in than to be unique and different?
Are people more likely to be productive and successful when they ignore the opinions of others?

--Following Authority

Should we pay more attention to people who are older and more experienced than we are?
Should society limit people's exposure to some kinds of information or forms of expression?
Can a group of people function effectively without someone being in charge?
Is it important to question the ideas and decisions of people in positions of authority?
Should society limit people's exposure to some kinds of information or forms of expression?
Is education primarily the result of influences other than school?
Should schools help students understand moral choices and social issues?

--Following Creativity

Is it always better to be original than to imitate or use the ideas of others?
Is it better for a society when people act as individuals rather than copying the ideas and opinions of others?
Is creativity needed more than ever in the world today?
Can people ever be truly original?
Do we put too much value on the ideas or actions of individual people?
Does planning interfere with creativity?


Motivation and Success

--Hardship and Success

Do people truly benefit from hardship and misfortune?
Do we really benefit from every event or experience in some way?
Do people place too much emphasis on winning?
Do people learn more from losing than from winning?
Does true learning only occur when we experience difficulties?
Does being ethical make it hard to be successful?
Can knowledge be a burden rather than a benefit?
Is persistence more important than ability in determining a person's success?
Is the effort involved in pursuing any goal valuable, even if the goal is not reached?

--Self-Determination and Success

Is identity something people are born with or given, or is it something people create for themselves?
Is it best for people to accept who they are and what they have, or should people always strive to better themselves?
Do success and happiness depend on the choices people make rather than on factors beyond their control?
Are people more likely to be happy if they focus on goals other than their own happiness?
Is it more important to do work that one finds fulfilling or work that pays well?

--Self-Expectation and Success

Do highly accomplished people achieve more than others mainly because they expect more of themselves?
Can people achieve success only if they aim to be perfect?
Is it best to have low expectations and to set goals we are sure of achieving?

--Collaboration and Success

Is it necessary for people to combine their efforts with those of others in order to be most effective?
Are organizations or groups most successful when their members pursue individual wishes and goals?
Do people achieve more success by cooperation than by competition?

--Ethics and Success

Does fame bring happiness, or are people who are not famous more likely to be happy?
Are people's actions motivated primarily by a desire for power over others?

--Quality or Quantity and Success

Do people achieve greatness only by finding out what they are especially good at and developing that attribute above all else?
Are all important discoveries the result of focusing on one subject?


Technological “Progress”

Does a strong commitment to technological progress cause a society to neglect other values, such as education and the protection of the environment?
Are there benefits to be gained from avoiding the use of modern technology, even when using it would make life easier?
Has today's abundance of information only made it more difficult for us to understand the world around us?
Is the most important purpose of technology today different from what it was in the past?
Have modern advancements truly improved the quality of people's lives?
Do newspapers, magazines, television, radio, movies, the Internet, and other media determine what is important to most people?
Should modern society be criticized for being materialistic?


Heroes

Do we benefit from learning about the flaws of people we admire and respect?
Should we limit our use of the term "courage" to acts in which people risk their own well-being for the sake of others or to uphold a value?
Should we admire heroes but not celebrities?
Is there a value in celebrating certain individuals as heroes?


Tradition

Do all established traditions deserve to remain in existence?
Do people need to "unlearn," or reject, many of their assumptions and ideas?
Should people always prefer new things, ideas, or values to those of the past?
Do incidents from the past continue to influence the present?
Do memories hinder or help people in their effort to learn from the past and succeed in the present?
Is it always necessary to find new solutions to problems?


Loyalty

Should people always be loyal?
Do circumstances determine whether or not we should tell the truth?
Can deception—pretending that something is true when it is not—sometimes have good results?
Is it sometimes necessary to be impolite?
Is acting an essential part of everyday life?


Others (less clearly defined; separated by spaces)

Is compromise always the best way to resolve a conflict?
Should people choose one of two opposing sides of an issue, or is the truth usually found "in the middle"?

Is the main value of the arts to teach us about the world around us?
Can books and stories about characters and events that are not real teach us anything useful?

Can common sense be trusted and accepted, or should it be questioned?
Do people put too much emphasis on learning practical skills?
Should people take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general?

Should people let their feelings guide them when they make important decisions?
Can people have too much enthusiasm?
Do images and impressions have too much of an effect on people?

Are decisions made quickly just as good as decisions made slowly and carefully?
Should people change their decisions when circumstances change, or is it best for them to stick with their original decisions?
Is it better to change one's attitude than to change one's circumstances?

Is criticism—judging or finding fault with the ideas and actions of others—essential for personal well-being and social progress?

Does having a large number of options to choose from make people happy?

Post edited by ObsessedOne on January 2

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SAT writing prompts

Essay prompts from the most recent SAT administration

Below are essay prompts from the most recent SAT administration in January 2014.

Prompt 1

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

Frederick Douglass once said, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle." He was right. Progress is something that must be fought for; without conflict, progress simply does not occur.

Assignment: Does progress result only from struggle and conflict? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Prompt 2

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

There are two false assumptions about experts. One is that they see more clearly and think more intelligently than ordinary citizens. Sometimes they do, sometimes not. The other false assumption is that these experts have the same interests as ordinary citizens and hold the same values. In fact, the important decisions of society are within the capability of ordinary citizens. Not only can ordinary people make their own decisions without the help of experts, but they ought to.

Adapted from Howard Zinn, Declarations of Independence

Assignment: Should people make more decisions on their own and rely less on the advice of experts? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Prompt 3

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

For many people, the traditional path to success involves graduating from high school and college before working their way up in a particular profession. However, many of society’s most successful individuals taught themselves the skills they needed to start their own businesses, invent new technologies, or create works of art. For these individuals, the nontraditional path turned out to be the path to success.

Assignment: Are people who do not follow society’s traditional paths to advancement more likely to be successful than those who do? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Prompt 4

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

Some see printed books as dusty remnants from the preelectronic age. They point out that electronic books, or e-books, cost less to produce than printed books and that producing them has a much smaller impact on natural resources such as trees. Yet why should printed books be considered obsolete or outdated just because there is something cheaper and more modern? With books, as with many other things, just because a new version has its merits doesn’t mean that the older version should be eliminated.

Assignment: Should we hold on to the old when innovations are available, or should we simply move forward? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart video

Things Fall Apart Intro

Intro and background on Achebe

Things Fall Apart Video Questions:

World Literature                                                               Name ________________

Things Fall Apart: Video Notes

1.  The publication of Things Fall Apart was kind of a watershed moment in African Literature and Achebe has been called the father of modern African writing.  Explain what is meant by this, and why.

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2. Explain the importance of the setting of Things Fall Apart. Be sure to include where and when it is set.

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3. Before Achebe's novel appeared, most Europeans and Americans knew of Africa only as the Dark Continent. If you lived in New York and you wanted to learn about African culture, you would have to go to the Museum of Natural History, and there you would see exhibits about African villages right next to polar bears and leopards. A particular target of Achebe's own distress at the portrayal of Africa is Joseph Conrad's famous novella, Heart of Darkness. Explain.

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4.  Early on in the novel, we're being introduced to this main character Okonkwo. How is he presented to the reader, and why do you suspect he is portrayed in this way?

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5. How are Achebe’s time of birth, location, childhood and education interesting given the context of the novel?  

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6. “This is not a novel about the badness of Christianity. It's a novel about the complexity of that situation.”  Explain.

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7. One of the things that Achebe has always said, is that part of what he thought the task of the novel was, was to create a usuable past. Trying to give people a richly textured picture of what happened, not a sort of monotone explanation. Explain.

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8. How and when was Things Fall Apart received in the United States?

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Grade 11 SBAC audio links

On the Final Flight of the Discovery - audio

Paul Revere Williams: Architect to the stars

Forces of Nature: Weather 101

Things Fall Apart- Objectives

Things Fall Apart

Objectives
By the end of this Unit, the student will be able to:
1. understand how African literature and literary traditions influence Achebe’s writing style.
2. offer a close reading of Things Fall Apart and support all assertions and interpretations
with direct evidence from the text, from authoritative critical knowledge of the genre, or
from authoritative criticism of the novel.
3. discuss the dramatic development of the narrative in terms of exposition, conflict, climax,
and resolution.
4. demonstrate a literal, personal, interpretive, and critical understanding of the text.
5. explain the importance of the title as a theme in the novel.
6. explain the central conflicts in the narrative, and explain the nature of the internal and
external conflicts with which various characters cope.
7. understand the novel as an exploration of the ramifications of Colonialism.
8. examine Okonkwo as a tragic hero.
9. analyze the importance of literary elements like dramatic irony, foreshadowing, and suspense
on the development of the story.
10. trace and discuss recurring imagery.
11. discuss the use of proverbs in the narrative and how they contribute to the overall effect
of the novel.
12. analyze how point of view influences the literary narrative.
13. explain how Achebe uses character foils to illuminate the differences between the principal
characters.

How to beat the SAT essay

How to Beat the SAT Writing Portion-The Persuasive Essay

What the Writing Section Actually Tests

Writing skills and grammar? While that may sound pretty broad and frightening, the truth about what the Writing section tests is not so extreme. First, remember that the essay section is only 25 minutes long. Nobody expects you to write a perfect and inspired piece of work in less than half an hour. In fact, the essay-graders mostly want to see that you can understand a topic and take a position. And that’s pretty much it. This chapter tells you the ingredients you’ll need for every SAT essay and provides a Universal SAT Essay Template that gives you a model essay pattern to follow.

The multiple-choice questions all test grammar. The multiple-choice section does not test stuff like spelling or vocabulary. However, using proper spelling and appropriate vocabulary is very important on the SAT essay, since the SAT essay-graders consider your overall command of language when scoring your work.

The multiple-choice questions, combined with the essay, make up the entire SAT Writing section.

Beat the Essay

A “great SAT essay” and a “great essay” are not the same thing. Truly great essays take hours or even days to plan, research, and write. The SAT essay can’t take more than 25 minutes. That means you’ve got to write an essay that convinces your grader of your genius in less time than it takes to watch The Simpsons, right? Wrong.

The SAT knows that 25 minutes isn’t enough time for anyone, anywhere, to write a genius essay. Forget genius. Forget about trying to write an essay that changes the world. When the SAT says to you, “Here’s 25 minutes, write an essay,” what they’re saying between the lines is: “Write a standard essay that does exactly what we want.”

To give the SAT what it wants, you need to have a very firm essay-writing strategy in place before you sit down to take the test. You then need to apply that strategy to whatever question the SAT essay poses. In this chapter, we teach you a strategy for writing a great SAT essay that works every time, on any topic. It all starts with fast food.

The SAT Essay Directions

The first thing you should not do when writing your SAT essay is read the directions. Don’t waste your time on the real test. Instead, read the directions now and make sure you understand them.

The essay gives you an opportunity to show how effectively you can develop and express ideas. You should, therefore, take care to develop your point of view, present your ideas logically and clearly, and use language precisely. Your essay must be written on the lines provided on your answer sheet—you will receive no other paper on which to write. You will have enough space if you write on every line, avoid wide margins, and keep your handwriting to a reasonable size. Remember that people who are not familiar with your handwriting will read what you write. Try to write or print so that what you are writing is legible to those readers. You have twenty-five minutes to write an essay on the topic assigned below. DO NOT WRITE ON ANOTHER TOPIC. AN OFF-TOPIC ESSAY WILL RECEIVE A SCORE OF ZERO.

We’ve translated these directions into a list of Dos and Don’ts to make all the rules easier to grasp:

DO	DON’T
Write only on the given topic as directed.	Write on a topic that relates vaguely to the one given.
Take a clear position on the topic.	Take a wishy-washy position or try to argue two sides.
Write persuasively to convince the grader.	Write creatively or ornately just to show off.
Include reasons and examples that support your position.	Include examples not directly related to your position.
Write with correct grammar and spelling.	Forget to proof your work for spelling and grammar mistakes.
Write as clearly as possible.	Use too many fancy vocabulary words or overly long sentences.
Write specifically and concretely.	Be vague or use generalizations.
Write more than one paragraph.	Put more importance on length than on quality.
Write only on the given lined paper.	Make your handwriting too large or you’ll sacrifice space.
Write as neatly as possible in print or cursive.	Write in cursive if you can print. Print is much easier to read.

The Grader’s Instructions

The graders must refer to a set-in-stone list of criteria when evaluating each essay and deciding what grade (1 through 6) it deserves. The following chart is our explanation of the grading criteria that the SAT gives the graders.

Score	Description of Essay
6	A 6 essay is superior and demonstrates a strong and consistent command of the language throughout the entire essay, with at most a few small errors. A 6 essay: • shows a firm grasp of critical thinking and takes a powerful and interesting position on the topic • supports and develops its position with appropriate and insightful examples, arguments, and evidence • is tightly organized and focused, with a smooth and coherent progression of ideas • demonstrates a facility with language through the use of descriptive and appropriate vocabulary • uses intelligent variation in sentence structure • contains, at most, a few errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
5	A 5 essay is strong and demonstrates a generally consistent command of language throughout the entire essay, with no more than a few significant flaws and errors. A 5 essay: • shows well-developed critical thinking skills by taking a solid position on the topic • supports and develops its position on the topic with appropriate examples, arguments, and evidence • is organized and focused and features a coherent progression of ideas • demonstrates competence with language throughout by using appropriate vocabulary • uses varied sentence structure • contains few errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
4	A 4 essay is competent and demonstrates a basic command of the language throughout the entire essay. A 4 essay: • shows adequate critical thinking skill by taking a position on the topic and supporting that position with generally appropriate examples, arguments, and evidence • is mostly organized and focused, with a progression of ideas that is mostly coherent • demonstrates inconsistent facility with language and uses mostly appropriate vocabulary • uses some variation in sentence structure • contains some errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
3	A 3 essay shows developing competence and contains one or more of the following: • some critical thinking skills, as demonstrated by its position on the topic • inadequate support or development of its position based on deficiencies in examples, arguments, or evidence presented • lapses in organization and focus, including ideas that are not always coherent • a capacity for competent use of language, with occasional use of vague or inappropriate vocabulary • only minor variation in sentence structure • a variety of errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
2	A 2 essay is seriously flawed and demonstrates a poor command of the language throughout the entire essay. A 2 essay contains one or more of the following: • poor critical thinking skills as shown by an inconsistent or unclear position on the topic • insufficient support for the position on the topic as a result of faulty or nonexistent examples, arguments, and evidence • weak organization and focus, including ideas that are frequently incoherent • poor language skills through use of limited or wrong vocabulary • errors in sentence structure • errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and other rules of writing that make the meaning hard to understand
1	A 1 essay is profoundly flawed and demonstrates a very poor command of the language throughout the entire essay. A 1 essay contains one or more of the following: • no position on the topic, or almost no support or development of the position • poor organization and focus that makes the essay incoherent • numerous vocabulary errors • fundamental errors in sentence structure • errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation that make parts of the essay unintelligible.
0	Essays written on a topic other than the one assigned will receive a score of zero.

Know Your Ingredients

To write a tasty SAT essay, you’ve got to know the necessary ingredients: The different grades of 1 to 6 are based on the quality of your essay in four fundamental categories.

•    Positioning: The strength and clarity of your stance on the given topic.

•    Examples: The relevance and development of the examples you use to support your argument.

•    Organization: The organization of each of your paragraphs and of your essay overall.

•    Command of Language: Sentence construction, grammar, and word choice.

1. Positioning

SAT essay topics are always broad. Really, really, really broad. We’re talking “the big questions of life” broad. A typical SAT essay topic gives you a statement that addresses ideas like the concept of justice, the definition of success, the importance of learning from mistakes.

The broad nature of SAT topics means you’ll never be forced to write about topical or controversial issues of politics, culture, or society (unless you want to; we’ll talk about whether you should want to a little later). But the broadness of the topics also means that with a little thought you can come up with plenty of examples to support your position on the topic.

Philosophers take years to write tomes on the topics of justice or success. On the SAT, you get 25 minutes. Given these time constraints, the key to writing a great SAT essay is taking a strong position on an extremely broad topic. You need to select your position strategically. To do this, follow a two-step strategy:

•    Rephrase the prompt.

•    Choose your position.

It’s time to learn how to take a stand. Here’s a sample essay topic for the SAT:

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.             “It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.” —Samuel Smiles, Scottish author (1812-1904) Assignment: Is there truly no success like failure? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Rephrase the Prompt

Rephrase the prompt in your own words and make it more specific. If you rephrase the statement “Is there truly no success like failure?” you might come up with a sentence like “Can failure can lead to success by teaching important lessons that help us avoid repeating mistakes in the future?”

In addition to narrowing down the focus of the broad original topic, putting the SAT essay question in your own words makes it easier for you to take a position confidently, since you’ll be proving your own statement rather than the more obscure version put forth by the SAT.

Choose Your Position

Agree or disagree. When you choose an argument for a paper in school, you often have to strain yourself to look for something original, something subtle. Not here. Not on the 25-minute fast food essay. Once you’ve rephrased the topic, agree with it or disagree. It’s that simple.

You may have qualms or otherwise “sophisticated” thoughts at this point. You may be thinking, “I could argue the ‘agree’ side pretty well, but I’m not sure that I 100 percent believe in the agree side because. . . .” Drop those thoughts. Remember, you’re not going to have a week to write this essay. You need to keep it simple. Agree or disagree, then come up with the examples that support your simple stand.

2. Examples

To make an SAT essay really shine, you’ve got to load it up with excellent examples. Just coming up with any three examples that fit a basic position on a broad topic is not gonna cut it. But there are two things that do make excellent SAT examples stand out from the crowd:

•    Specific examples

•    Variety of examples

Specific Examples

Good examples discuss specific events, dates, or measurable changes over time. Another way to put this is, you have to be able to talk about things that have happened in detail.

Let’s say you’re trying to think of examples to support the position that “learning the lessons taught by failure is a sure route to success.” Perhaps you come up with the example of the American army during the Revolutionary War, which learned from its failures in the early years of the war how it needed to fight the British. Awesome! That’s a potentially great example. To make it actually great, though, you have to be able to say more than just, “The American army learned from its mistakes and then defeated the British Redcoats.” You need to be specific: Give dates, mention people, battles, tactics. If you use the experience of the American Army in the Revolutionary War as an example, you might mention the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which officially granted the Americans independence and gave the United States all lands east of the Mississippi River.

Just as bricks hold up a building, such detailed facts support an argument. There are literally millions of good, potential examples for every position you might choose. You need to choose examples that you know a lot about in order to be specific. Knowing a lot about an example means you know more than just the basic facts. You need to be able to use all the detailed facts about your example, such as dates and events, to show how your example proves your argument.

Knowing that the Americans defeated the British in 1783 is the start of a great example, but you must show specifically how the American victory proves the argument that “there’s no success like failure.” What failures on the part of the British government and army led to the Americans’ success? (Morale issues, leadership differences, inadequate soldiers and supplies, the Battle of Yorktown, and so on.) The one-two punch of a solid example and details that use the example to prove your argument make the difference between a good SAT essay example and a great one.

Variety of Examples

The other crucial thing about SAT essay examples is how much ground they cover. Sure, you could come up with three examples from your personal life about how you learned from failure. But you’re much more likely to impress the grader and write a better essay if you use a broad range of examples from different areas: history, art, politics, literature, science, and so on. That means when you’re thinking up examples, you should consider as wide a variety as possible, as long as all of your examples remain closely tied to proving your argument.

To prove the position that “there’s no success like failure,” you might choose one example from history, literature, and business or current events. Here are three examples that you might choose from those three areas:

•    History: The Americans’ victory over the British in the Revolutionary War.

•    Literature: Dickens’s success in writing about the working class based on his years spent in poverty as a child laborer.

•    Business or Current Events: The JetBlue airline succeeding by learning from the mistakes of its competitors.

A broad array of examples like those will provide a more solid and defensible position than three examples drawn from personal experience or from just one or two areas.

A Note on Truthfulness in Examples

The SAT essay tests how well you write. The examples you choose to support your argument and your development of those examples is a big part of how well you write. But there’s no SAT rule or law that says that the examples you use to support your arguments have to be true.

That does not mean you should make up examples from history or bend facts into falsehoods. Instead, it means you can take examples drawn from your personal experience or your own knowledge and present them as examples from current events, art, literature, business, or almost any other topic. For instance, let’s say your Aunt Edna started a business selling chocolate-covered pretzels on the street in New York City. She started the business because she noticed that her friends and neighbors were sick and tired of the dull, flavorless New York City pretzels offered at other stands, many of which had gone out of business due to lack of demand. Her chocolate-covered pretzel business became a success based on her competitors’ failures. Turn that example into an article you recently read in your local newspaper, and you’ve transformed your personal knowledge into a much more credible and impressive example about success and failure in business. It’s certainly better to use universal examples based on facts and events that your grader might recognize. If you’re in a bind, however, remember that you can bend the truth a bit and use your personal knowledge and experience to generate examples that prove your argument.

3. Organization

No matter what topic you end up writing about, the organization of your essay should be the same. That’s right, the same. If you’re asked to write about whether “there’s no success like failure” or about the merits of the phrase “progress always comes at a cost,” the structure of your essay should be almost identical. The SAT is looking for those standard ingredients, and the structure we’re about to explain will make sure those ingredients stand out in your essay.

So what’s this magical essay structure? Well, it’s back to the trusty

Know How to Put the Ingredients Together

By now you know all of the ingredients you should use and the template you should follow to write a great SAT essay. Next you need to learn the writing process that will empower you to put it all together into a top-score-worthy essay every time. Follow the five steps we describe next and you’ll be on your way to a 6.

Five Steps to a 6

Step 1	Understand the topic and take a position.	1 minute
Step 2	Brainstorm examples.	2–3 minutes
Step 3	Create an outline.	3–4 minutes
Step 4	Write the essay.	15 minutes
Step 5	Proof the essay.	2 minutes

Step 1: Understand the topic and take a position. (1 minute)

The first thing you must do before you can even think about your essay is read the topic very carefully. Here’s the sample topic we use throughout this section:

Consider the following statement and assignment. Then write an essay as directed.                                                       “There’s no success like failure.” Assignment: Write an essay in which you agree or disagree with the statement above. Remember to back up your position with specific examples from personal experience, current events, history, literature, or any other discipline. Your essay should be specific.

Make sure you understand the topic thoroughly by making it your own. To do that, use the two strategies we discussed in the Ingredients section:

•    Rephrase the Prompt. “Failure can lead to success by teaching important lessons that help us avoid repeating mistakes in the future.”

•    Choose Your Position. (In our example, we agree with the topic.)

That’s it. One step down, four more to go.

Step 2: Brainstorm examples. (2–3 minutes)

Your position is that you agree with the statement that “failure can lead to success by teaching important lessons that help us avoid repeating mistakes in the future.” Terrific.

Brainstorming, or thinking up examples to support your position, is the crucial next step. Plenty of SAT-takers will succumb to the temptation to plunge straight from Step 1 into writing the essay (Step 4). Skipping the brainstorming session will leave you with an opinion on the topic but with no clearly thought-out examples to prove your point. You’ll write the first thing that comes to mind, and your essay will probably derail. So even though you feel the time pressure, don’t skip brainstorming.

Brainstorming seems simple. You just close your eyes and scrunch up your face and THINK REALLY HARD until you come up with some examples. But, in practice, brainstorming while staring at a blank page under time pressure can be intimidating and frustrating. To make brainstorming less daunting and more productive, we’ve got two strategies to suggest:

Brainstorm by Category

The best examples you can generate to support your SAT essay topic will come from a variety of sources such as science, history, politics, art, literature, business, and personal experience. So, brainstorm a list split up by category. Here’s the list we brainstormed for the topic, “There’s no success like failure.”

Current Events	Failure of 9/11 security led to the creation of Homeland Security.
Science	Babies learn to walk only after trying and failing time and again.
History	Can’t think of one.
Politics	The US Constitution was written only after the failure of the Articles of Confederation.
Art	Can’t think of one.
Literature	James Joyce became a writer only after failing as a singer.
Personal Experience	Rod Johnson (your uncle) realized the need for a placement agency in South Carolina after getting laid off.
Business	Google watched the failures of its competitors and learned to improve its Internet business model and technology.

Let’s say you took three minutes and came up with a list of eight categories like ours, and you got examples for five of them. That’s still great. That means your next step is to choose the top three of your five potential examples.

Prepare Ahead of Time

If you want to put in the time, you could also do some brainstorming ahead of time. Brainstorming ahead of time can be a great method, because it gives you time to do more than just brainstorm. You can actually prepare examples for each of the seven categories we’ve brainstormed above in our chart. You could, for instance, read up about various scientists, learning about their successes, their failures, the impact of their discoveries (positive and negative), and memorize dates, events, and other facts.

The risk inherent in planning ahead is that you can get stuck with a topic on the SAT in which all your knowledge about scientists just isn’t applicable. But while this is somewhat of a risk, since the SAT essay topics are so broad, you can often massage your examples to fit. Preparing ahead of time will pay off if you develop a few examples that you know a lot about for the essay. But it could backfire if it winds up that you absolutely cannot use the examples you prepared. Then you’ll have to resort to thinking up examples on the spot. If you don’t want to risk wasting time preparing ahead of time, don’t. It’s up to you.

Choose Your Top Three

When you go through your brainstormed and pre-prepared examples to decide which three you should actually use, you need to keep three things in mind:

•    Which examples can you be most specific about?

•    Which examples will give your essay the broadest range?

•    Which examples are not controversial?

The first two reasons are pretty straightforward: Specificity and variety in your examples will help you write the strongest essay. The point about controversy is a bit more subtle. Staying away from very controversial examples ensures that you won’t accidentally offend or annoy your grader, who might then be more inclined to lower your grade. For instance, the 9/11 example from our brainstormed list should be cut. The event just is too full of unresolved issues to serve as a suitable essay topic, and the last thing you want to do is upset or offend your grader.

Here’s another example. Let’s say that you’re not so certain if that story about James Joyce being a singer is even really true, and that you think lots of people might go for the babies walking example. That would mean you decide to keep the examples about the Constitution, Google, and the story of Rod Johnson. What if instead of referring to Rod Johnson as your enterprising uncle, you portray him as a businessman you read about in an esteemed publication recently? Transform your personal experience and make it seem like an actual example from current events. The SAT essay graders care much more about how well you write and how intelligently you can use examples to back up your position than they care about the truth of what you say in examples drawn from personal experience.

That means you’ve narrowed down your brainstormed topics to the top three. Next up: Outlining.

Step 3: Create an outline. (3–4 minutes)

After brainstorming comes the essay writing step that students tend to dread most—writing an outline. So we’re here to encourage you to embrace the outline. Love the outline! Live the outline! At the very least, write the outline. On fast food essays like the SAT essay, which rewards standard conformity much more than it does creativity, organizing your ideas in outline form and then sticking to that outline is crucial. Though you may feel that you’re wasting your time, we guarantee that the four or five minutes that you invest in writing an outline will definitely be paid back when you write the essay.

Writing the Outline

Since your outline is a kind of bare-bones “map” of your essay, the outline should follow our Universal SAT Essay Template. Here’s a summary of the template:

PARAGRAPH	PURPOSE	WHAT IT SHOULD CONTAIN
1	Introduction	Thesis statement; state examples
2	Example 1	Topic sentence for example 1; explain example 1
3	Example 2	Topic sentence for example 2; explain example 2
4	Example 3	Topic sentence for example 3; explain example 3
5	Conclusion	Thesis rephrased in a broader way; a look into the future

As you write the outline, remember that conveying your ideas clearly matters at this stage. Your outline need not be articulate or even comprehensible to anyone other than you. Your outline must contain all the essential raw material that will become your thesis statement, topic sentences, and concluding statement when you write your essay.

As you sketch out your outline, consider where you want each example to go. We suggest that you put what you consider to be your strongest example first, followed by the second strongest, and then the least strong. We suggest this because the essay is a timed section, and if for some reason you run out of time and can only fit two example paragraphs between your intro and conclusion, they might as well be your best two examples. Here’s a sample outline we’ve written based on the topic and examples we have already discussed. Notice that we’ve placed our examples in strongest to weakest order starting in paragraph 2.

PARAGRAPH 1: INTRODUCTION	Failure can lead to success teaching lessons, learning mistakes. Three examples: (1) US Constitution and Articles failure, (2) failed dot-coms lead to more successful online businesses, (3) guy who started successful recruiting business after getting laid off.
PARAGRAPH 2: EXAMPLE 1 (BEST)	US Constitution developed by studying the failures of previous document, Articles of Confederation. By studying failures US became true revolutionary democracy.
PARAGRAPH 3: EXAMPLE 2 (NEXT BEST)	Google studied competitors’ struggles, came up with better technological solution and better business model. Since failure is good teacher, intelligent companies look for failure everywhere, even in rivals, to learn and evolve.
PARAGRAPH 4: EXAMPLE 3 (NEXT BEST)	Johnson founded job placement agency based on difficulties finding a new job after getting laid off. Studied his failure, found problems lay with system, not with him.
PARAGRAPH 5: CONCLUSION	Failure often seen as embarrassing. People try to hide it. But if you or society take responsibility for it, study it, history shows failure leads to success for everyone.

Your outline does not have to be written in complete sentences. Notice how in the example above we drop verbs and write in a note-taking style. Feel free to write just enough to convey to yourself what you need to be able to follow during the actual writing of your essay. Once you have the outline down on paper, writing the essay becomes more a job of polishing language and ideas than creating them from scratch.

Step 4: Write the essay. (15 minutes)

Writing the essay consists of filling out your ideas by following your outline and plugging in what’s missing. That adds up to only about ten more sentences than what you’ve jotted down in your outline, which should already contain a basic version of your thesis statement, one topic sentence for each of your three examples, and a conclusion statement that ties everything together. All together your essay should be about fifteen to twenty sentences long.

As you write, keep these three facets of your essay in mind:

•    Organization

•    Development

•    Clarity

Following your outline will make sure you stick to the Universal SAT Essay Template. That means organization shouldn’t be a problem.

As far as development goes, you should make sure that every sentence in the essay serves the greater goal of proving your thesis statement as well as the more immediate purpose of building on the supporting examples you present in the intro and in each example paragraph’s topic sentence. You should also make sure that you are specific with your examples: give dates, describe events in detail, and so on.

By clarity, we mean the simplicity of the language that you use. That involves spelling and grammar, but it also means focusing on varying sentence length and structure as well as including a few well-placed vocabulary words that you definitely know how to use correctly.

Do not break from your outline. Never pause for a digression or drop in a fact or detail that’s not entirely relevant to your essay’s thesis statement. You’re serving fast food, and fast food always sticks to the core ingredients and the universal recipe.

If You Run Out of Time

If you’re running out of time before finishing the intro, all three example paragraphs, and the conclusion, there’s still hope. Here’s what you should do: Drop one of your example paragraphs. You can still get a decent score, possibly a 4 or 5, with just two. Three examples is definitely the strongest and safest way to go, but if you just can’t get through three, take your two best examples and go with them. Just be sure to include an introduction and a conclusion in every SAT essay.

The Finished Essay: Our Example

Here is an example of a complete SAT essay. It’s based strictly on the outline we built in step 3 of our Five Steps to a 6, with a focus on clear simple language and the occasional drop of special sauce.

Learning the lessons taught by failure is a sure route to success. The United States of America can be seen as a success that emerged from failure: by learning from the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, the founding fathers were able to create the Constitution, the document on which America is built. Google Inc., the popular Internet search engine, is another example of a success that arose from learning from failure, though in this case Google learned from the failures of its competitors. Another example that shows how success can arise from failure is the story of Rod Johnson, who started a recruiting firm that arose from Johnson’s personal experience of being laid off.       The United States, the first great democracy of the modern world, is also one of the best examples of a success achieved by studying and learning from earlier failures. After just five years of living under the Articles of Confederation, which established the United States of America as a single country for the first time, the states realized that they needed a new document and a new, more powerful government. In 1786, the Annapolis convention was convened. The result, three years later, was the Constitution, which created a more powerful central government while also maintaining the integrity of the states. By learning from the failure of the Articles, the founding fathers created the founding document of a country that has become both the most powerful country in the world and a beacon of democracy.       Unlike the United States, which had its fair share of ups and downs over the years, the Internet search engine company, Google, has suffered few setbacks since it went into business in the late 1990s. Google has succeeded by studying the failures of other companies in order to help it innovate its technology and business model. Google identified and solved the problem of assessing the quality of search results by using the number of links pointing to a page as an indicator of the number of people who find the page valuable. Suddenly, Google’s search results became far more accurate and reliable than those from other companies, and now Google’s dominance in the field of Internet search is almost absolute.       The example of Rod Johnson’s success also shows how effective learning from mistakes and failure can be. Rather than accept his failure after being laid off, Johnson decided to study it. After a month of research, Johnson realized that his failure to find a new job resulted primarily from the inefficiency of the local job placement agencies, not from his own deficiencies. A month later, Johnson created Johnson Staffing to correct this weakness in the job placement sector. Today Johnson Staffing is the largest job placement agency in South Carolina and is in the process of expanding into a national corporation.       Failure is often seen as embarrassing, something to be denied and hidden. But as the examples of the U.S. Constitution, Google, and Rod Johnson prove, if an individual, organization, or even a nation is strong enough to face and study its failure, then that failure can become a powerful teacher. The examples of history and business demonstrate that failure can be the best catalyst of success, but only if people have the courage to face it head on.

Step 5: Proof the essay. (2 minutes)

Proofing your essay means reading through your finished essay to correct mistakes or to clear up words that are difficult to read. If you don’t have two minutes after you’ve finished writing the essay (step 4), spend whatever time you do have left proofing. Read over your essay and search for rough writing, bad transitions, grammatical errors, repetitive sentence structure, and all that special sauce stuff. The SAT explicitly says that handwriting will not affect your grade, but you should also be on the lookout for instances in which bad handwriting makes it look as if you’ve made a grammatical or spelling mistake.

If you’re running out of time and you have to skip a step, proofing is the step to drop. Proofing is important, but it’s the only one of the Five Steps to a 6 that isn’t absolutely crucial.

Two Sample SAT Essays—Up Close

Below is our sample essay question, which is designed to be as close as possible to an essay question that might appear on the SAT. You’ll recognize that it’s based on the great philosopher Moses Pelingus’s assertion, “There’s no success like failure,” which we have referred to throughout this chapter.

This particular essay topic presents you with a very broad idea and then asks you to explain your view and back it up with concrete examples. Not every SAT essay topic will take this form, but every SAT essay question will require you to take a position and defend it with examples.

Here’s the sample prompt again:

Consider carefully the following quotation and the assignment below it. Then plan and write an essay that explains your ideas as persuasively as possible. Keep in mind that the support you provide—both reasons and examples—will help make your view convincing to the reader.                                                       “There’s no success like failure.” What is your view on the idea that success can begin with failure? In an essay, support your position using an example (or examples) from literature, the arts, history, current events, politics, science and technology, or from your personal experience or observation.

Below are two different versions of responses to our sample essay question. We provide examples of a 6 essay and a 4 essay, complete with a brief analysis of each essay and how they differ from each other. We evaluate both essays according to three sets of criteria:

•    Our four essential essay ingredients

•    The SAT grader’s checklist

•    A checklist based on our Universal SAT Essay Template

As you read both examples, note that we have marked certain sentences and paragraphs to illustrate where and how the essay does or does not abide by our Universal SAT Essay Template.

A 6 Essay

Learning the lessons taught by failure is a sure route to success. (THESIS STATEMENT) The United States of America can be seen as a success that emerged from failure: by learning from the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, the founding fathers were able to create the Constitution, the document on which America is built. (BEST SUPPORTING EXAMPLE [1]) Google Inc., the popular Internet search engine, is another example of a success that arose from learning from failure, though in this case Google learned from the failures of its competitors. (NEXT BEST SUPPORTING EXAMPLE [2]) Another example that shows how success can arise from failure is the story of Rod Johnson, who started a recruiting firm that arose from Johnson’s personal experience of being laid off. (NEXT BEST SUPPORTING EXAMPLE [3])       The United States, the first great democracy of the modern world, is also one of the best examples of a success achieved by studying and learning from earlier failures. (TOPIC SENTENCE FOR EXAMPLE 1) After just five years of living under the Articles of Confederation, which established the United States of America as a single country for the first time, the states realized that they needed a new document and a new more powerful government. In 1786, the Annapolis convention was convened. The result, three years later, was the Constitution, which created a more powerful central government while also maintaining the integrity of the states. By learning from the failure of the Articles, the founding fathers created the founding document of a country that has become both the most powerful country in the world and a beacon of democracy. (FOUR DEVELOPMENT SENTENCES TO SUPPORT EXAMPLE 1)       Unlike the United States, which had its fair share of ups and downs over the years, the Internet search engine company, Google Inc., has suffered few setbacks since it went into business in the late 1990s. (TOPIC SENTENCE FOR EXAMPLE 2) Google has succeeded by studying the failures of other companies in order to help it innovate its technology and business model. Google identified and solved the problem of assessing the quality of search results by using the number of links pointing to a page as an indicator of the number of people who find the page valuable. Suddenly, Google’s search results became far more accurate and reliable than those from other companies, and now Google’s dominance in the field of Internet search is almost absolute. (THREE DEVELOPMENT SENTENCES TO SUPPORT EXAMPLE 2)       The example of Rod Johnson’s success as an entrepreneur in the recruiting field also shows how effective learning from mistakes and failure can be. (TOPIC SENTENCE FOR EXAMPLE 3) Rather than accept his failure after being laid off, Johnson decided to study it. After a month of research, Johnson realized that his failure to find a new job resulted primarily from the inefficiency of the local job placement agencies, not from his own deficiencies. A month later, Johnson created Johnson Staffing to correct this weakness in the job placement sector. Today Johnson Staffing is the largest job placement agency in South Carolina, and is in the process of expanding into a national corporation. (FOUR DEVELOPMENT SENTENCES TO SUPPORT EXAMPLE 3)       Failure is often seen as embarrassing, something to be denied and hidden. But as the examples of the U.S. Constitution , Google, and Rod Johnson prove, if an individual, organization, or even a nation is strong enough to face and study its failure, then that failure can become a powerful teacher. (THESIS STATEMENT REPHRASED IN BROADER WAY THAT PUSHES IT FURTHER) The examples of history and business demonstrate that failure can be the best catalyst of success, but only if people have the courage to face it head on.

Why This Essay Deserves a 6

First, we need to assess whether this essay contains the four essential ingredients of a great SAT essay. Here they are, just to refresh your memory:

•    Positioning: The strength and clarity of the position on the given topic.

•    Examples: The relevance and development of the examples used to support your argument.

•    Organization: The organization of each paragraph and of the essay overall.

•    Command of Language: Sentence construction, grammar, and word choice.

This essay serves up all four SAT essay ingredients. It takes a very strong and clear stance on the topic in the first sentence and sticks to it from start to finish. It uses three examples from a very diverse array of disciplines—from Internet technology to history and politics to a profile of an entrepreneur—and it never veers from using these examples to support the thesis statement’s position.

The organization of the essay follows our Universal SAT Essay Template perfectly, both at the paragraph level (topic sentences and development sentences) and at the overall essay level (intro, three meaty example paragraphs, a strong conclusion). The command of language remains solid throughout. The writer does not take risks with unfamiliar vocabulary but instead chooses a few out of the ordinary words like beacon, deficiencies, and innovate that sprinkle just the right amount of special sauce throughout the essay. Sentence structure varies often, making the entire essay more interesting and engaging to the grader. Finally, no significant grammar errors disrupt the overall excellence of this SAT essay.

Here’s a quick-reference chart that takes a closer look at this 6 essay based on the actual SAT’s evaluation criteria for graders and based on our Universal SAT Essay Template.

SAT CRITERIA FOR 6 ESSAYS	YES OR NO?
Consistently excellent, with at most a few minor errors.	YES
Takes a clear position on the topic and uses insightful relevant examples to back it up.	YES
Shows strong overall organization and paragraph development.	YES
Demonstrates a superior command of language, as shown by varied sentence structure and word choice.	YES
OUR UNIVERSAL SAT ESSAY TEMPLATE CRITERIA	YES OR NO?
Thesis statement in first sentence of paragraph 1.	YES
Three examples listed in paragraph 1 in order from best to worst.	YES
Topic sentence for example in paragraph 2.	YES
3–4 development sentences to support paragraph 2’s example.	YES
Topic sentence for example in paragraph 3.	YES
3–4 development sentences to support paragraph 3’s example.	YES
Topic sentence for example in paragraph 4.	YES
3–4 development sentences to support paragraph 4’s example.	YES
Conclusion paragraph contains rephrased thesis statement.	YES
About 15 sentences total.	YES

A 4 Essay

Failure can sometimes lead to success. (THESIS STATEMENT) Many Internet commerce businesses have learned from the terrible failures of the dot-com boom and bust, and today are in much stronger more successful positions than they were just a few years ago. (SUPPORTING EXAMPLE [1]). Another example proving that failure sometimes leads to success is that of Arnold “Arnie” Wagner, a heavy metal drummer who learned to play the drums in a better different style after a crippling car accident almost killed him and his band. (SUPPORTING EXAMPLE [2])       Not all Internet businesses vanished when the dot-com boom went bust—some picked up the pieces, learned from their mistakes, and moved on.The Internet boom was good to online shoppers but not so great to online businesses. Shoppers reaped the benefits of all kinds of great deals and online promotions, while e-commerce businesses did themselves in. Some Internet companies realized the mistakes others were making, such as offering too deep discounts and not charging for shipping, and they now have benefited by not suffering the same pitfalls. Only the failure of other business made this happen. (FOUR DEVELOPMENT SENTENCES TO SUPPORT EXAMPLE 1)       Arnold “Arnie” Wagner is one of the best drummers alive today. (NO TOPIC SENTENCE TO SUPPORT EXAMPLE 2) He’s sure lucky to be alive! Arnie lost his right arm in a car crash just as his band Darkness Falls was beginning to establish success. Rather than give up and fail with his one arm, Wagner took the problem on courageously and decides to view it as an opportunity to change his drumming style. He has a special drum kit designed for him, complete with electronic pedals controlled by foot, which leads him to a new style and his band to even greater heights of success. (FIVE DEVELOPMENT SENTENCES TO SUPPORT EXAMPLE 2)       Failure doesn’t have to end there. Often people and businesses use other’s failures or even their own to learn from mistakes and try not to repeat them. Proof? Today Arnie Wagner is still on top of the drumming world, and many online businesses continue to thrive. (THESIS STATEMENT TOUCHED ON, BUT NOT REPHRASED IN BROADER WAY THAT PUSHES IT FURTHER) The examples of history and business demonstrate that failure can be the best catalyst of success, but only if people have the courage to face it head on.

Why This Essay Deserves a 4

This essay does an adequate job serving up all four SAT essay ingredients. It’s competent overall but not exceptional. That’s the key difference between 4 essays and 6 essays. The 4s are like average students: They do the work the night before, turn it in, and get back a passing grade that keeps their parents off their back. The 6s are above excellent students: They do their homework days in advance, turn it in early, and impress teachers with the superior quality of their work.

More specifically, this 4 essay takes a stance on the topic in the first sentence and sticks to it, but the stance is not resoundingly clear from the start: “Failure can sometimes lead to success.” The thesis statement is vague and makes the essay’s positioning wishy-washy, which makes it weaker overall than the 6 essay’s unwavering stance. It does use examples to support its position, but its examples are not as sophisticated or as varied as the examples in the 6 essay. They’re also not linked together with transitions and occasionally veer slightly off topic. The organization of the essay follows our Universal SAT Essay Template closely, but not perfectly. For starters, it contains only two examples. Though not disastrous, including only two examples limits the breadth of your support. It also makes the strength and quality of your examples all the more crucial, since having only two will make the grader scrutinize them more closely than if your support were spread over three examples.

At the sentence level, this essay does include a thesis statement and a topic sentence in the first example paragraph, but the structure begins to derail at the beginning of the second example paragraph. The writer introduces the drummer Arnie Wagner, but not in a way that is directly related to proving the thesis statement. The paragraph meanders toward a topic sentence, but never regains a sure footing. The conclusion refers back to the thesis statement in broad terms (“Failure doesn’t have to end there”), but it does not tie the essay together as well as the broadening conclusion found in the 6 essay. The command of language remains acceptable throughout. Compared to the 6 essay, this 4 essay contains significantly more spelling and grammar errors, most notably the jarring tense shift in paragraph 3. The entire passage is written in the past tense, but suddenly shifts into the present tense with the sentence that begins, “He has a special drum kit. . . .” This essay also features repetitive sentence structure that makes it a much duller read than the 6. The 4 contains no special sauce whatsoever, another contributing factor to its average quality overall.

Here’s a closer look at this 4 essay based on the SAT’s evaluation criteria for graders and based on our Universal SAT Essay Template. Pay special attention to the difference in criteria for 4 essays and 6 essays, and to the deficiencies in the 4 essay as compared to the 6 (the NOs in the YES/NO column). The 4 essay’s NOs pinpoint its weaknesses, which we just discussed.

SAT CRITERIA FOR 4 ESSAYS	YES OR NO?
Consistently solid, with at least several minor errors and a few more serious weaknesses or mistakes.	YES
Addresses the topic presented adequately.	YES
Uses examples to support a position on the topic.	YES
Shows acceptable organization and development throughout.	YES
Competent but not consistent command of language, with several errors in grammar and usage and only slight sentence variation.	YES
OUR UNIVERSAL SAT ESSAY TEMPLATE CRITERIA	YES OR NO?
Thesis statement in first sentence of paragraph 1.	YES
Three examples listed in paragraph 1 in order from best to worst.	NO
Topic sentence for example in paragraph 2.	YES
3–4 development sentences to support paragraph 2’s example.	YES
Topic sentence for example in paragraph 3.	NO
3–4 development sentences to support paragraph 3’s example.	NO
Topic sentence for example in paragraph 4.	NO
3–4 development sentences to support paragraph 4’s example.	NO
Conclusion paragraph contains rephrased thesis statement.	YES
About 15 sentences total.	YES