Prep expert new SAT essay

Shaan Patel is the founder of 2400 Expert Test Prep, a 1 bestselling SAT ACT book author, and MDMBA student at Yale and USC. He raised his own SAT score from average to perfect and teaches students his methods via online classes at prepexpertdotcom The Prep Expert New SAT Essay Guide teaches students how to ace the essay portion of the Redesigned 2016 SAT. Although the essay will now be “optional” on the SAT, most colleges will still require students to submit their “SAT scores with essay.” So it’s absolutely essential that students prepare for this part of the exam. Shaan Patel is famous in the SAT prep world for his essay template that helped tens of thousands of students get perfect scores on the essay portion of the 2400version of SAT. For the New 2016 Redesigned SAT Essay, Shaan has once again created an essay template that will help students achieve perfect scores on New SAT Essay. In addition to Shaan’s essay template, the Prep Expert New SAT Essay Study Guide includes 20 strategies that will teach you: •How to save two minutes of time other students would waste •How to impress your essay graders in 7 seconds or less •How to quickly write a 4page SAT Essay •How to avoid getting writer’s block •How to format every SAT Essay •How to write a compelling thesis •How to write a compelling plan of procedure •How to bring coherency to your essay •How to avoid the one mistake that is detrimental to your SAT Essay score •How to connect different ideas within your SAT Essay •How to avoid writing amateursounding prose •How to quickly find the main idea of the SAT Essay passage •How to create paragraph summaries of the SAT Essay passage •How to identify the 8 most common argumentative tools authors of passages use •How to conduct a thorough analysis of the SAT Essay passage •How to write killer SAT Essay introductions, body paragraphs, and conclusions •How to perfectly mimic example SAT Essays written by Shaan Patel

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About The Author

Shaan PatelPerfect Score SAT Student, Valedictorian, & Homecoming KingWinner of $250,000 in Scholarships

#1 Bestselling Published Author

40 Under 40 Las Vegas 2015

MD/MBA Student at Yale & USC

Shaan Patel is the founder of Prep Expert Test Preparation, a #1bestselling SAT & ACT book author, and MD/MBA student at Yale andUSC He raised his own SAT score from average to perfect and

teaches students his methods via online classes at PrepExpert.com

INTRODUCTION

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1 What Is The Format?

17 Body Paragraph 1 Template

18 Body Paragraph 2 Template

19 Body Paragraph 3 Template

20 Conclusion Template

PRACTICE SAT ESSAY

SAT ESSAY INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Welcome to the SAT Essay portion of the Prep Expert Course! TheNew SAT Essay on the 1600-version of the SAT is different than theold SAT Essay on the 2400-version of the SAT Here are a few of themajor changes:

Optional The essay is now optional However, I expect every Prep

Expert student to take the essay portion of the new 1600-version of the SAT I will explain why later.

Analytical The previous version of the SAT Essay required students to write a persuasive essay You had to convince the reader that your position on a particular topic was the correct one The new version of the SAT Essay requires that students write an analytical essay You now need to analyze how the author of a passage develops an effective argument.

50 Minutes You now have much more time to write the SAT Essay On the previous version of the SAT Essay, students were limited to 25

minutes to write a full two-page essay You now have double that time, but must also read and analyze a passage, which you didn’t previously have to do But the good news is that we will teach you how to analyze the passage methodically so that you have plenty of time to write a compelling essay.

Despite these changes, there are still lots of effective strategies totackle the SAT Essay Previously, at 2400 Expert, students loved ourstrategies for the prior version of the SAT Essay that allowed them to

get perfect, or near-perfect, scores every time And this is still true forthe New SAT Essay! Many of the strategies that were applicable to theold SAT Essay are still applicable to the New SAT Essay And the NewSAT Essay is more formulaic than ever Even though the College

Board tried to change the essay so that students could not game itanymore, we have gamed it again So get ready to learn some

powerful strategies to ace the New SAT Essay!

SAT ESSAY

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1 WHAT IS THE FORMAT?

SAT ESSAY FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What Is The Format?

Time 50 minutes

Passage Type Argumentative The author of the passage will try topersuade the reader of a particular position Your job is to analyzehow effectively the author develops his or her argument

Passage Length 650 – 750 words

Passage Content Topic for a broad audience You will not need tohave prior knowledge of the topic in order to write a compelling SATEssay

Passage Complexity High school level (grades 9 -12)

Last Section Unlike the previous 2400-version of the SAT Essay thatwas always the first section of the SAT, the 1600-version of the SATEssay is always the last section of the SAT

SAT ESSAY FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Required vs Optional On the 2400-version of the SAT, the essay wasrequired and part of your SAT Writing score On the new 1600-

version of the SAT, the essay is optional and a completely separatescore outside of your SAT Evidenced-Based Reading & Writing score

Persuasive vs Analytical On the 2400-version of the SAT, the essaywas persuasive While you may believe that it’s easier to write a

persuasive essay because you are able to write about your opinion, itwas actually a difficult task because of the academic evidence youhad to provide in order to back up your claims On this 1600-version

of the SAT Essay, all of the evidence you need can be found in thepassage Therefore, the New SAT Essay actually requires even lessoutside knowledge than before Your opinion on the topic no longermatters whereas on the previous version of the essay, your opinion

on the topic was all that mattered So you should stay as objective aspossible when writing your essay – do not let your opinion on thetopic creep into your essay

25 Minutes vs 50 Minutes You have double the time to write the NewSAT Essay compared to the old SAT Essay While this may seem likegood news, it all depends on how long it takes you to read the SATEssay passage If you spend 25 minutes analyzing the passage, thenyou don’t really have any extra time at all However, I will show youhow to take much less time to read the passage as well as specificitems to look for in your analysis This should reduce the

reading/analysis portion of your SAT Essay section so that you havemore time to diligently write a well-developed SAT Essay

First Section vs Last Section On the previous version of the SAT, Iused to say that the SAT Essay is the most important section of theSAT because it is the first section How well you did on the SAT Essayused to affect how well you would do on the rest of the exam If youwere frantic and unorganized while writing your SAT Essay, then youwould be frantic and unorganized during the rest of the SAT But ifyou were confident and organized while writing your SAT Essay, thenyou would be confident and organized during the rest of the SAT.Because the New SAT Essay is now the last section of the SAT, it nolonger has to an impact on the rest of the SAT However, you stillwant to finish strong so that you aren’t anxious after the exam

SAT ESSAY FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How Is It Scored?

The New SAT Essay is scored out of 24 You will be given three

subscores of out of 8: Writing, Reading, and Analysis Two separategraders will read your essay Each grader will give your essay a scorebetween 1 – 4 for Writing, Reading, and Analysis Here is an example:

Writing – Final Score 7

Reading – Final Score 7

Analysis – Final Score 5

*Although your score report will not explicitly give you a score out of 24, it’s clear here that the total score is 19/24

Subscores

Writing – Your writing subscore indicates how well you are able to use proper grammar, transitions, sentence structure, and organization in your essay Many of the grammar rules from the SAT Writing multiple- choice section of this course will be applicable here.

Reading – Your reading subscore indicates how well you comprehended the passage You must fully understand a passage in order to score well here Many of the strategies from the SAT Reading section of this course will be applicable here.

Analysis – Your analysis subscore indicates how well you evaluated the author’s ability to develop an argument Many of the strategies for the SAT Essay will cover how to synthesize the best analysis possible.

What You Really Need to Know

While the above scoring details are important, what you really need

to know is how the SAT Essay is scored The College Board trains highschool English teachers to grade SAT Essays The teachers are givenstrict instructions as to how to grade SAT Essays using standardizedcriteria This means that if your essay is very similar to an essay thathas gotten a perfect score in the past, then you too should get a

perfect score on the essay This is essential in order to keep the

scores standardized and avoid subjectivity

Even more important than the standardized way by which your essay

is scored is how much time your essay graders are given to scoreyour essays In high school, English teachers might have hours tograde a handful of essays But on the SAT, English teachers only have

a few minutes to grade each essay…because they have thousands tograde! With so little time to actually read your essay, English teacherscannot scrutinize essays to look for brilliant insights and subtle

connections

Therefore, we need to use this time constraint that English teachershave to our advantage If an English teacher is only going to look atour essay for a couple of minutes and our essay is on the same topic

as hundreds of other essays that he or she has read that day, then

we need to figure out a way to stand out Not only do we need tostand out, but we need to stand out quickly You must give that

English teacher clear, quick, tangible clues that you are a smart highschool student who deserves a high score on the SAT Essay TheEssay Expert Strategies you learn in this course will teach you exactlythat!

SAT ESSAY FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Is It Harder?

Students, especially those who prepared for the 2400-version of theSAT Essay previously, might be wondering whether the New SATEssay is easier or harder to write than before The old SAT Essay wasvery easy to write The topics were broad and allowed students toessentially prepare their examples ahead of time before seeing thetopic In addition, we gave students essay templates that made theprevious version of the SAT Essay very formulaic Because SAT Essaytopics were so general, we could write an almost identical essay forany topic

While the above may sound good, I have even better news! The NewSAT Essay is actually the easiest version of the SAT Essay ever TheCollege Board eventually caught on to SAT prep companies like PrepExpert that were giving students preformed templates to write SATEssays Therefore, it changed the format of the SAT Essay Instead ofhaving general topics that students could create their own examplesfor (which were typically prepared beforehand…at least for Prep

Expert students), the College Board decided to change the SAT Essay

to an analysis format so that students would not be able to havepreset examples ready to write about While you may think that thiswas a smart move by the College Board to prevent gaming the SATEssay, we’ve actually gamed the New SAT Essay again! Here’s how.Largely Same – The College Board has stated that the prompts forthe New SAT Essay are “largely the same.” This is great news for Prep

means that responses can be the “largely the same.” In fact, I havecreated a New SAT Essay Template that will help you write a very

similar essay for just about any passage you analyze

Formulaic – The New SAT Essay is more formulaic than ever Becausethere are only so many ways that an author can develop an

argument, there are also only so many ways you can analyze thatargument Therefore, I have developed a very formulaic way to

analyze author arguments for the New SAT Essay Although formulaicmay be a bad thing in your high school English class, it’s actually avery good thing on the SAT

Time – Students who took the 2400-version of the SAT always used tocomplain 25 minutes wasn’t enough time to write a full SAT Essay Butnow you have double the time to write your SAT Essay: 50 minutes Irecommend dedicating 15 minutes of your 50 minutes to readingand analyzing the passage This leaves you with 35 minutes to

compose your essay Compared to the meager 25 minutes that

students used to have, 35 minutes will seem like an eternity!

SAT ESSAY FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Should I Take The Sat Essay?

Yes All Prep Expert students should take the New SAT Essay

Although many students may have been excited to learn that the SATEssay is now optional, the truth is, it really isn’t For students who areapplying to competitive universities, these institutions will almostalways require the “New SAT with Essay” when submitting

standardized test scores Because most Prep Expert students will beapplying to the top 100 universities in the United States, I expectevery student taking this course to take the New SAT Essay

In addition, the New SAT Essay is easy to prep for Although the essaymay seem intimidating right now, after you learn the Essay ExpertStrategies you will find that the New SAT Essay is perhaps your

favorite portion of the SAT We will give you tangible strategies thatwill make it easy to write an essay that is articulate, organized, andcompelling Our strategies are not only easy to implement, but alsovery standardized so there isn’t a lot of creativity needed Becausethis portion of the SAT is so easy to prepare for, students should notfear it

The only exception to this rule of having to take the New SAT Essay is

if you know for certain that you are not applying to any university thatrequires the essay portion of the SAT Some students taking this

course may be applying to just 2 or 3 universities After you confirmwith those few universities that they do not require the essay portion

of the SAT, then and only then can you skip out on taking the SATEssay

However, if you are at all uncertain about exactly which universitiesyou are going to be applying to, then I recommend taking the NewSAT with Essay You don’t want to be in a situation in which you takethe New SAT without Essay and then decide later that you want toapply to a university that requires the New SAT with Essay Now, let’sget started on learning Essay Expert Strategies to Ace the SAT Essay!

17 BODY PARAGRAPH 1 TEMPLATE

18 BODY PARAGRAPH 2 TEMPLATE

19 BODY PARAGRAPH 3 TEMPLATE

20 CONCLUSION TEMPLATE

SAT ESSAY EXPERT STRATEGIES

Skip The Directions

In order to save time on test day, do not read the SAT Essay

directions For most students, the Saturday morning that they takethe SAT is often the first time they have ever taken the SAT

Therefore, they waste a lot of time reading the directions

This is true for SAT Math directions, SAT Reading directions, SAT

Writing directions, but especially true for SAT Essay directions SATEssay directions are lengthy and take a long time to read Becausethey are always the same, you should familiarize yourself with thedirections before test day Not only will this save you a few minutes oftime that other students would waste reading the directions, but youwill also already have a clear idea of what is required On the nextpage is a reproduction of the SAT Essay directions you will encounter

on test day

As you read the passage below, consider how [the author]

uses

Evidence, such as facts or examples, to support claims

Reasoning to develop ideas and to connect claims and

evidence

Stylistic or persuasive elements, such as word choice or

appeals to emotion, to add power to the ideas expressed

[Source Text Will Appear Here]

Write an essay in which you explain how [the author] builds

an a rgument to persuade [his/ her] audience that [author’sclaim] In your essay, analyze how [the author] uses one or

more of the features listed above (or features of your own

choice) to strengthen the logic and persuasiveness of

[his/her] argument Be sure that your analysis focuses on

the most relevant aspects of the passage

Your essay should not explain whether you agree with [the

author’s] claims, but rather explain how the author builds anargument to persuade [his/her] audience

The first box is especially useful because it gives you examples ofcertain items that you can analyze in the passage The SAT suggeststhat you examine how the author uses evidence/examples,

reasoning, and stylistic elements to develop his or her argument

After the first box, the source text that you are expected to read andanalyze will appear But before we discuss how to breakdown thispassage, let’s examine the second box The first sentence of thesecond box is the most important part of all of the directions:

Write an essay in which you explain how

[the author] builds an argument to persuade [his/her] audience that [author’s claim]

This is the key point: your essay must explain how the author buildshis or her argument

In the second sentence, the SAT is giving you permission to analyzeelements other than evidence, reasoning, and stylistic techniques.

Finally, I believe the College Board put the last sentence of the

directions in for students who are accustomed to writing the version of the SAT Essay On the old version of the SAT, students

2400-wrote persuasive essays on their own opinions The SAT explicitlystates in these new directions that students should stay objective andnot let their own opinions interfere with the content of the essay

SAT ESSAY EXPERT STRATEGIES

Exploit Vocab

Use scholarly, intellectual vocabulary words throughout your SAT Essay.

Your SAT Essay grader does not know you He or she does not knowwhether you are typically a good writer or not Unlike your high

school English teacher who may know how well you normally write,the SAT Essay grader will have no bias Therefore, you need to signal

to the SAT Essay grader that you are a smart high school student whodeserves a high score on the SAT Essay One way to alert your grader

is through your vocabulary By using big vocabulary words in youressay, readers will immediately get the impression that your essay isdifferent from the hundreds of other essays they have read that day.Although many high school English teachers would cringe if they

heard me say that you should inflate your vocabulary in order to

score higher on an essay, it’s the truth for the SAT Essay Bigger

vocabulary words lead to higher SAT Essay scores

Using scholarly vocabulary words early on in your essay is especiallyimportant I once heard that people make a first impression aboutyou 7 seconds after they first meet you I believe this is also true forthe SAT Essay After about 7 seconds of reading your SAT Essay,

graders will form an initial impression of what score they will give yourSAT Essay They will then spend the next couple of minutes readingthrough the rest of your essay confirming their initial opinion

Typically, their grades don’t change by more than 1 point on eachsubscore from their initial impression Therefore, using large

that first opinion is especially important.

You must use vocabulary correctly in order to positively impact yourSAT Essay score I purposely say “correctly” because using large

vocabulary words incorrectly can actually work against you You willappear as though you are trying too hard if you use large, scholarlyvocabulary words without really understanding what they mean

Therefore, I don’t encourage students to use large vocabulary wordssimply for the sake of using large vocabulary words Instead, use bigvocabulary words throughout your essay but only when absolutelyappropriate

Vocabulary is a tangible measure Remember that the SAT is a

standardized test This means that essay graders cannot be

subjective in the way that they grade your test They cannot scoreyour essay higher just because they agree with your analysis Instead,they have to look at objective measures that convey your writing,reading, and analysis abilities One tangible, unbiased measure thatessay graders cannot argue is your vocabulary Including intellectualvocabulary words in your essay will have the following benefits:

Showcase a command of language – this will positively impact your Writing Subscore

Better expression of ideas – this will positively impact your Reading Subscore because you will be able to convey your exact understanding

of the passage

Create more advanced insights – this will positively impact your Analysis Subscore

Interestingly, the College Board has stated that memorization of

obscure vocabulary words is no longer needed to score well on theNew SAT This is true for the SAT Reading section because Sentence

Completions, which used to directly test vocabulary, have been

eliminated from the exam But it is not true for the New SAT Essay.Therefore, rather than stating that obscure vocabulary is no longerneeded for the New SAT, it would be more accurate to state that

obscure vocabulary is not needed as much for the New SAT For theNew SAT Essay portion, you still need to know scholarly vocabularywords that you probably wouldn’t use in everyday language The goodnews is that you don’t need to know nearly as many big vocabularywords for the SAT as previous students did

To help you use large, intellectual vocabulary words, I have come upwith a list of some common words that you will likely use in your SATEssay I have then put scholarly synonyms for these common words

in the tables that follow While you are writing your SAT Essay, youcan switch out these common words for larger synonyms For

example, instead of using the common word “argument,” you canreplace it with the scholarly synonym “polemic.” These tables shouldonly be a starting point You should create your own tables of

common words that you typically use in your SAT Essay Then, look upsome more academic synonyms for your common words

Common Nouns

On the New SAT Essay, you will commonly use the following nouns:argument, society, article, and result Instead of always using thesewords throughout your essay, you can replace them for some of themore scholarly synonyms listed in the tables below

Argument

Polemic

Contention

On the New SAT Essay, you will commonly use the following

adjectives: good, bad, necessary, and clear Instead of always usingthese words throughout your essay, you can replace them for some

of the more scholarly synonyms listed in the tables below

some of the more scholarly synonyms listed in the tables below

SAT ESSAY EXPERT STRATEGIES

Fill 3–4 Pages

You must fill up 3-4 pages of the test booklet for the SAT Essay.

Longer SAT Essays get higher scores It’s simply not up for debate.Imagine that you are an SAT Essay grader You probably would notgive an essay that is only half a page in length a higher score than onethat is three pages in length Natural human inclination simply favorsessays that are longer in length Of course, this once again goes

against traditional wisdom High school English teachers often stressthat writing is about quality over quantity While I do agree that the 3-

4 pages of information that you write should not be substandardinsights, the physical length of your SAT essay is immensely

important

Most students who take the SAT on Saturday morning have neverpracticed an SAT Essay before Having never been confronted with apassage that they need to read, analyze, and compose an essay

about in under an hour, many become flustered They end up writinghalf-page essays that are disjointed, disorganized, and incoherent.The average student does not know what he or she needs to look for

in the passage, how to organize his or her essay, and to have

prepared SAT Essay templates Don’t let this be you Learn and

practice the Expert Essay Strategies so that you can write a logical,organized, and coherent essay

Essay length is a tangible measure just like vocabulary I mentionedearlier how vocabulary is one tangible way an essay grader can get a

sense of how “smart” you are Another objective measure the essaygrader can use is essay length Typically, smarter students have more

to say A long essay shows that you have thoughtfully analyzed theessay and that you are not just trying to skate by with minimal effort

If you remember nothing else about the SAT Essay section,

remember that you need to use scholarly vocabulary words and fill

3-4 pages of your essay answer booklet These two simple strategieswill significantly raise any student’s SAT Essay score

The notion that longer SAT Essays receive higher scores is not justsomething I made up There is actually scientific evidence that provesthis hypothesis In 2005, MIT conducted a study that found that

longer SAT essays receive higher scores Lead investigator, Dr

Perelman stated, “It appeared to me that regardless of what a

student wrote, the longer the essay, the higher the score.” Now I

know you might be thinking, “well this is for the old 2400 SAT, not thenew 1600 SAT.” However, this concept of longer essays getting higherscores also applies to the New SAT Essay The proof actually comesdirectly from the College Board The sample essays that the CollegeBoard has released for the New SAT show a direct correlation

between length and scores The essays that receive the lowest

Writing, Reading, and Analysis Subscores are the shortest in length.The essays that receive the highest Writing, Reading, and AnalysisSubscores are the longest in length In addition to the evidence fromMIT and the College Board, thousands of students who have usedPrep Expert have found that the longer their essays, the higher theirscores The evidence is clear: longer SAT Essays get higher scores

To read a full passage you’ve never seen before, analyze the author’spersuasive techniques, and write a 3-4 page essay on it is not an easytask Although you have more time than on the previous version ofthe SAT, you will still need to work expediently There is no time to

waste You should be very efficient about reading and analyzing thepassage in 15 minutes Then, give yourself approximately 35 minutes

to fill 3-4 pages of the SAT Essay answer booklet This is most similar

to a surprise in-class essay you may get in your high school Englishclass (which I used to despise, by the way) However, unlike your in-class high school English essay, you will be fully prepared for anythingthe SAT throws at you after you learn all of the Expert Essay

Strategies

SAT ESSAY EXPERT STRATEGIES

Create a Plan

Create a plan for your SAT Essay before you start writing.

The essay portion of the SAT can be intimidating On test day, youmay see many students open their essay test booklet and

immediately start writing You might be worried and think, “How comeI’m not able to immediately start writing?” Well, it’s actually a goodthing that you are not just bursting out of the gate into your essaycomposition Students who start writing without thinking first will getstuck Without a concrete plan that helps organize how the studentwill navigate his or her thoughts, the essay will end up being a series

of disjointed thoughts without a central thread Therefore, you mustspend a few minutes at the beginning to organize your thoughts

After you have read the passage, you should create a plan about

what your essay will cover This will give a concrete structure aroundwhich to organize your thoughts Your SAT Essay plan should not takelonger than 2 or 3 minutes to write and it will have tremendous

benefits If you ever get writer’s block while writing your SAT Essay,you can refer back to your plan to recalibrate and get inspiration foryour next sentence In addition, your plan helps you organize yourideas around a central thesis

So what needs to go in your plan? The primary items that you need toinclude in your plan are the three tools “Tools” are the argumentativetechniques that the author uses to develop his or her argument Wewill discuss the tools in another Expert Essay Strategy But for now,

let’s say that the three tools you think the author uses well in order todevelop his or her argument are authoritative sources, diction, andemotional appeal Simply writing out these three tools gives

immediate structure to your essay These tools are what you will

discuss in your body paragraphs In addition to writing which 3 toolsyou are going to discuss in your essay, you want to reference 2-4paragraphs in the passage that the author uses those 3 particulartools very well Here is an example of a quick plan you could createbefore writing your SAT Essay:

Plan

(1) Authoritative Sources – Paragraph 2, Paragraph 4, Paragraph 6(2) Diction / Word Choice – Paragraph 1, Paragraph 3, Paragraph 5(3) Emotional Appeal – Paragraph 2, Paragraph 3, Paragraph 5

SAT ESSAY EXPERT STRATEGIES

Write 5 Paragraphs

Write your SAT Essay in a 5-paragraph format.

For the purposes of the SAT Essay, a standard 5-paragraph format isperfect:

This structure works well for the SAT Essay primarily because of thebody paragraphs Each body paragraph will be filled with an analysis

of an argumentative tool that the author uses In addition, the

introduction and conclusion are necessary because the College

Board actually subtracts points from students who do not have anopener and closer to their essay By adhering to the same formatevery time, the less time you waste thinking of essay structure, andthe more time you spend writing great content

SAT ESSAY EXPERT STRATEGIES

Thesis First

Begin every SAT Essay with your thesis.

Similar to the structure of the 2400-version of the SAT Essay that wepreviously taught at Prep Expert, you should begin every New SATEssay with your thesis However, unlike the previous version of theSAT Essay in which your thesis was essentially your own opinion, thethesis for this New SAT Essay is fundamentally different Instead, thisnew thesis will always be a positive one: the author develops a greatargument

Before we can start our SAT essay with a thesis though, we need tounderstand exactly what a thesis is My high school English teacherhad a really good explanation of what a thesis is that has stuck with

me all these years He said that a thesis is a statement that you canplace after, “In this essay, I will prove that [insert thesis here] .” Ifthis statement makes sense, then you have a thesis If this statementdoes not make sense, then you do not have a thesis Essentially, athesis is the argument you are trying to prove in an essay

For the purposes of the SAT, we will use a standard template for thefirst-sentence thesis that you will open every SAT Essay with:

In “[Title of Article],” [Author name] synthesizes a compelling dissertation that [Passage’s Key Point].

Here is an example of how you would use it on an actual SAT Essay:

In “The Enduring Value of a Humanities Education,” Jane Smith

synthesizes a compelling dissertation that knowledge relating to the humanities is indispensable to the progress of society.

Not a bad way to start an SAT Essay, right? Knowing exactly what youare going to write for the first sentence of your SAT Essay is especiallypowerful One of the hardest parts about writing is simply gettingstarted For some reason, the act of initially putting words to paper isparticularly difficult But once you get started, writing the rest of thesentences becomes easier By having a standard opener for everySAT Essay, we have solved the problem of getting initial writer’s block!

SAT ESSAY EXPERT STRATEGIES

POP Last

Okay so now that I have given you the first sentence of every SAT

Essay introduction, let me give the last sentence If you start with yourthesis, you should end with your POP – or Plan Of Procedure A Plan

of Procedure outlines exactly what you will be discussing in the

forthcoming body paragraphs For the SAT Essay, a POP is essentialbecause it helps organize the essay both for the reader and you TheSAT Essay grader is likely reading your essay at lightning speed

Therefore, it’s helpful if you give him or her some guideposts as towhat you will be discussing your essay In addition, the POP will helpyou remember what you need to discuss in your body paragraphs

For the purposes of the SAT, we will use a standard template for thelast-sentence POP to end every SAT Essay introduction with:

[Author Last Name] deftly delivers a cogent argument to sway [his/her] readers by [Insert 3 Argumentative Tools].

Here is an example of how you would use it in an actual SAT Essay:

Smith deftly delivers a cogent argument to sway her readers by citing prominent authorities, implying broad repercussions, and using stark contrast.

Don’t worry if you don’t know what I mean by “3 Argumentative Tools.”

We will discuss exactly what argumentative tools are soon For now,you should only understand that the first body paragraph of our

essay will discuss how Smith uses prominent authorities to

strengthen her argument, the second body paragraph will discusshow Smith uses broad repercussions to better her argument, and thethird body paragraph will discuss how Smith uses stark contrast toimprove her argument Using a clear POP such as this will help youressay achieve a level of organization that most students’ essays lack.