SAT Writing Exam

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most DMV high school students have opportunities to take free SATs, and families that meet income requirements also can apply for/receive test fee waivers.

I see no reason to take the writing/essay section on the SAT or any other section of the SAT early unless a talent search requires it. (The PSAT does not have an essay section.) The SAT essay section can only be taken with the rest of the test.

This section asks students to read a 650-750 word passage designed for a general audience, and to analyze how the author constructs an argument. This essay task is very similar to DBQs, with which most DMV high school students are familiar.

Taking the essay section on the SAT is "optional," but about half of all colleges and universities still require or recommend it. The requirement or recommendation is rather random, except that small liberal arts colleges may be more likely than other colleges and universities to rely on other evidence of students' abilities to execute college-level writing tasks. Schools that receive a student's SAT essay score/s and don't require or recommend them will just ignore it/them. Taking the essay section of the SAT is a good idea for most students because, when they test, they haven't finalized application decisions, and because many will decide that they want to superscore across multiple tests. AP English classes and accompanying AP tests offer students other opportunities to demonstrate their writing abilities, as well as ways to waive college courses down the road.

Full disclosure: I own an academic prep and placement service at chevychaseprepdotcom

Thanks for this info. Q: is the essay portion part of a free practice exam? Who scores it? Can its score be trusted/predictive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not many schools require it, but if you’re not sure where your kid wants to apply, then they should just probably get it out of the way.

From what I’ve read, kids should try to get at least an 8.

According to the College Board 2017 Total Group Report, the average SAT essay score for 2017 high school graduates was 5 out of 8 for reading, 4 out of 8 for Analysis, and 5 out of 8 for Writing.

Two human raters assess each SAT essay, awarding a score of 1-4 (inadequate-partial-proficient-advanced) in each of three categories: Reading, Analysis, and Writing. The scores are added together to produce a 2-8 score on each of the dimensions.

The SAT offers 8 full length practice tests on their website. These tests also appear in their Official SAT Study Guide, which contains a detailed essay scoring rubric and a set of sample benchmark essays.

Fill disclosure again from chevychaseprep.com

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not many schools require it, but if you’re not sure where your kid wants to apply, then they should just probably get it out of the way.

From what I’ve read, kids should try to get at least an 8.

8 is the maximum score for each section of the essay. There are three sections and 2 scorers for each section who award 1-4 points.

Oops, sorry I was thinking of the ACT. For the SAT, the average score and the one you want to hit is at least a 5-6 in each section.

[Anonymous]

Our DD did the essay last December and I honestly have no clue how they can grade these things. She scored a 6 (reading), 3 (analysis) and 5 (writing). She did no prep for it.

Luckily, none of the schools she is considering requires the essay so we will not take again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if DD does well on the SAT Exam but extremely poorly on the written? Will schools that do not require Written Exam still see the results or do they only see the Math and Verbal?

Most schools say that they don't even look at the essay portion if that's what you mean. My son did the essay just in case they (admissions) changed their minds and wanted to see competence demonstrated through a standardized scoring on an essay. The verbal portion is broken down into multiple choice reading and writing questions and those comprise the verbal score.

You can take the SAT w/o the written essay portion if you want to. I don't know that you can just take the essay but you can check to see if that's something you can sign up for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most DMV high school students have opportunities to take free SATs, and families that meet income requirements also can apply for/receive test fee waivers.

I see no reason to take the writing/essay section on the SAT or any other section of the SAT early unless a talent search requires it. (The PSAT does not have an essay section.) The SAT essay section can only be taken with the rest of the test.

This section asks students to read a 650-750 word passage designed for a general audience, and to analyze how the author constructs an argument. This essay task is very similar to DBQs, with which most DMV high school students are familiar.

Taking the essay section on the SAT is "optional," but about half of all colleges and universities still require or recommend it. The requirement or recommendation is rather random, except that small liberal arts colleges may be more likely than other colleges and universities to rely on other evidence of students' abilities to execute college-level writing tasks. Schools that receive a student's SAT essay score/s and don't require or recommend them will just ignore it/them. Taking the essay section of the SAT is a good idea for most students because, when they test, they haven't finalized application decisions, and because many will decide that they want to superscore across multiple tests. AP English classes and accompanying AP tests offer students other opportunities to demonstrate their writing abilities, as well as ways to waive college courses down the road.

Full disclosure: I own an academic prep and placement service at chevychaseprepdotcom

Thanks for this info. Q: is the essay portion part of a free practice exam? Who scores it? Can its score be trusted/predictive?

Full disclosure again -- My students who just took and are taking practice SATs at school took/are taking the essay. The essays are scored by SAT-trained raters with solid backgrounds in fields like applied linguistics. (Ditto for the scoring of ACT essays, which call for writing an argument.) In my view, SAT essay scores can be trusted for what they are. That is, in one or two rather stressful trials, they assess students' ability to complete a timed DBQ-like task, which is valued across the curriculum in our educational system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most DMV high school students have opportunities to take free SATs, and families that meet income requirements also can apply for/receive test fee waivers.

I see no reason to take the writing/essay section on the SAT or any other section of the SAT early unless a talent search requires it. (The PSAT does not have an essay section.) The SAT essay section can only be taken with the rest of the test.

This section asks students to read a 650-750 word passage designed for a general audience, and to analyze how the author constructs an argument. This essay task is very similar to DBQs, with which most DMV high school students are familiar.

Taking the essay section on the SAT is "optional," but about half of all colleges and universities still require or recommend it. The requirement or recommendation is rather random, except that small liberal arts colleges may be more likely than other colleges and universities to rely on other evidence of students' abilities to execute college-level writing tasks. Schools that receive a student's SAT essay score/s and don't require or recommend them will just ignore it/them. Taking the essay section of the SAT is a good idea for most students because, when they test, they haven't finalized application decisions, and because many will decide that they want to superscore across multiple tests. AP English classes and accompanying AP tests offer students other opportunities to demonstrate their writing abilities, as well as ways to waive college courses down the road.

Full disclosure: I own an academic prep and placement service at chevychaseprepdotcom

Father is elderly (will be early 70s when she finishes high school) and I have a cognitive debilitating disease that will escalate. I hoped that having DC take the SAT earlier will be less stress then later down the road. I was hoping taking it Freshman year would be good experience since she can learn to deal with the stress, etc. If she does well, it would be one less task for her to deal with. Is the Essay exam geared for AP Lit/AP Eng students? Can a Freshman handle the test? We have not prepped for the SAT so we are unaware.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most DMV high school students have opportunities to take free SATs, and families that meet income requirements also can apply for/receive test fee waivers.

I see no reason to take the writing/essay section on the SAT or any other section of the SAT early unless a talent search requires it. (The PSAT does not have an essay section.) The SAT essay section can only be taken with the rest of the test.

This section asks students to read a 650-750 word passage designed for a general audience, and to analyze how the author constructs an argument. This essay task is very similar to DBQs, with which most DMV high school students are familiar.

Taking the essay section on the SAT is "optional," but about half of all colleges and universities still require or recommend it. The requirement or recommendation is rather random, except that small liberal arts colleges may be more likely than other colleges and universities to rely on other evidence of students' abilities to execute college-level writing tasks. Schools that receive a student's SAT essay score/s and don't require or recommend them will just ignore it/them. Taking the essay section of the SAT is a good idea for most students because, when they test, they haven't finalized application decisions, and because many will decide that they want to superscore across multiple tests. AP English classes and accompanying AP tests offer students other opportunities to demonstrate their writing abilities, as well as ways to waive college courses down the road.

Full disclosure: I own an academic prep and placement service at chevychaseprepdotcom

Father is elderly (will be early 70s when she finishes high school) and I have a cognitive debilitating disease that will escalate. I hoped that having DC take the SAT earlier will be less stress then later down the road. I was hoping taking it Freshman year would be good experience since she can learn to deal with the stress, etc. If she does well, it would be one less task for her to deal with. Is the Essay exam geared for AP Lit/AP Eng students? Can a Freshman handle the test? We have not prepped for the SAT so we are unaware.

As a freshman, DC will not be ready for standardized tests designed for high school juniors and seniors, and encouraging her to be part of her regular HS cohort also could help her socially and psychologically. Here's a take I agree with: https://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/sats-for-soph/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most DMV high school students have opportunities to take free SATs, and families that meet income requirements also can apply for/receive test fee waivers.

I see no reason to take the writing/essay section on the SAT or any other section of the SAT early unless a talent search requires it. (The PSAT does not have an essay section.) The SAT essay section can only be taken with the rest of the test.

This section asks students to read a 650-750 word passage designed for a general audience, and to analyze how the author constructs an argument. This essay task is very similar to DBQs, with which most DMV high school students are familiar.

Taking the essay section on the SAT is "optional," but about half of all colleges and universities still require or recommend it. The requirement or recommendation is rather random, except that small liberal arts colleges may be more likely than other colleges and universities to rely on other evidence of students' abilities to execute college-level writing tasks. Schools that receive a student's SAT essay score/s and don't require or recommend them will just ignore it/them. Taking the essay section of the SAT is a good idea for most students because, when they test, they haven't finalized application decisions, and because many will decide that they want to superscore across multiple tests. AP English classes and accompanying AP tests offer students other opportunities to demonstrate their writing abilities, as well as ways to waive college courses down the road.

Full disclosure: I own an academic prep and placement service at chevychaseprepdotcom

Father is elderly (will be early 70s when she finishes high school) and I have a cognitive debilitating disease that will escalate. I hoped that having DC take the SAT earlier will be less stress then later down the road. I was hoping taking it Freshman year would be good experience since she can learn to deal with the stress, etc. If she does well, it would be one less task for her to deal with. Is the Essay exam geared for AP Lit/AP Eng students? Can a Freshman handle the test? We have not prepped for the SAT so we are unaware.

Forget the writing portion.

Have her take a practice SAT test for free on the Khan Academy website. If her scores are really strong, then yes go ahead and test so early. If not, she realy should wait.

[Anonymous]

I think the problem with the essay is the lack of range of scores. If the two readers give you a 3 on each section, that's an 18. If they give you 2, that's a 12. If they were able to score each section out of 15 say, there wouldn't be such a dramatic difference between scores.

[Anonymous]

Thank you everyone for the great help! The school had offered free PSAT/NMSQT testing which she scored a 1500. That is one of the reason we figured to go ahead with the SAT testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you everyone for the great help! The school had offered free PSAT/NMSQT testing which she scored a 1500. That is one of the reason we figured to go ahead with the SAT testing.

Wow! Fantastic!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most DMV high school students have opportunities to take free SATs, and families that meet income requirements also can apply for/receive test fee waivers.

I see no reason to take the writing/essay section on the SAT or any other section of the SAT early unless a talent search requires it. (The PSAT does not have an essay section.) The SAT essay section can only be taken with the rest of the test.

This section asks students to read a 650-750 word passage designed for a general audience, and to analyze how the author constructs an argument. This essay task is very similar to DBQs, with which most DMV high school students are familiar.

Taking the essay section on the SAT is "optional," but about half of all colleges and universities still require or recommend it. The requirement or recommendation is rather random, except that small liberal arts colleges may be more likely than other colleges and universities to rely on other evidence of students' abilities to execute college-level writing tasks. Schools that receive a student's SAT essay score/s and don't require or recommend them will just ignore it/them. Taking the essay section of the SAT is a good idea for most students because, when they test, they haven't finalized application decisions, and because many will decide that they want to superscore across multiple tests. AP English classes and accompanying AP tests offer students other opportunities to demonstrate their writing abilities, as well as ways to waive college courses down the road.

Full disclosure: I own an academic prep and placement service at chevychaseprepdotcom

Father is elderly (will be early 70s when she finishes high school) and I have a cognitive debilitating disease that will escalate. I hoped that having DC take the SAT earlier will be less stress then later down the road. I was hoping taking it Freshman year would be good experience since she can learn to deal with the stress, etc. If she does well, it would be one less task for her to deal with. Is the Essay exam geared for AP Lit/AP Eng students? Can a Freshman handle the test? We have not prepped for the SAT so we are unaware.

Forget the writing portion.

Have her take a practice SAT test for free on the Khan Academy website. If her scores are really strong, then yes go ahead and test so early. If not, she realy should wait.

I apologize for the detour my question might result in. Does anyone know if the practice SAT test on the Khan Academy website is as tough as the actual SAT test. The reason I am asking is because my sophomore child did very well on the Khan academy practice test and based on that score we have decided not to pay for a prep class. However his sophomore official PSAT score was not as strong. He scored 1420/1500 on the actual PSAT and 1520/1600 on the Khan academy practice SAT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most DMV high school students have opportunities to take free SATs, and families that meet income requirements also can apply for/receive test fee waivers.

I see no reason to take the writing/essay section on the SAT or any other section of the SAT early unless a talent search requires it. (The PSAT does not have an essay section.) The SAT essay section can only be taken with the rest of the test.

This section asks students to read a 650-750 word passage designed for a general audience, and to analyze how the author constructs an argument. This essay task is very similar to DBQs, with which most DMV high school students are familiar.

Taking the essay section on the SAT is "optional," but about half of all colleges and universities still require or recommend it. The requirement or recommendation is rather random, except that small liberal arts colleges may be more likely than other colleges and universities to rely on other evidence of students' abilities to execute college-level writing tasks. Schools that receive a student's SAT essay score/s and don't require or recommend them will just ignore it/them. Taking the essay section of the SAT is a good idea for most students because, when they test, they haven't finalized application decisions, and because many will decide that they want to superscore across multiple tests. AP English classes and accompanying AP tests offer students other opportunities to demonstrate their writing abilities, as well as ways to waive college courses down the road.

Full disclosure: I own an academic prep and placement service at chevychaseprepdotcom

Father is elderly (will be early 70s when she finishes high school) and I have a cognitive debilitating disease that will escalate. I hoped that having DC take the SAT earlier will be less stress then later down the road. I was hoping taking it Freshman year would be good experience since she can learn to deal with the stress, etc. If she does well, it would be one less task for her to deal with. Is the Essay exam geared for AP Lit/AP Eng students? Can a Freshman handle the test? We have not prepped for the SAT so we are unaware.

Forget the writing portion.

Have her take a practice SAT test for free on the Khan Academy website. If her scores are really strong, then yes go ahead and test so early. If not, she realy should wait.

I apologize for the detour my question might result in. Does anyone know if the practice SAT test on the Khan Academy website is as tough as the actual SAT test. The reason I am asking is because my sophomore child did very well on the Khan academy practice test and based on that score we have decided not to pay for a prep class. However his sophomore official PSAT score was not as strong. He scored 1420/1500 on the actual PSAT and 1520/1600 on the Khan academy practice SAT

This was what I was told by my child's math teacher and chose to believe:

Most prep classes depend on old SAT exams to prepare students for the SAT Exam. When the SAT had changed the exam format, there was a drop in SAT averages. Currently, there are no prep tests that are close to the SAT exams since the format is new and no old exams in circulation. Khan Academy is the most helpful because it teaches the kids to understand the subject vs strategy to taking the exam. If your child did well on Khan Academy, they should do well on the SAT.

We did not prep nor has my child used Khan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most DMV high school students have opportunities to take free SATs, and families that meet income requirements also can apply for/receive test fee waivers.

I see no reason to take the writing/essay section on the SAT or any other section of the SAT early unless a talent search requires it. (The PSAT does not have an essay section.) The SAT essay section can only be taken with the rest of the test.

This section asks students to read a 650-750 word passage designed for a general audience, and to analyze how the author constructs an argument. This essay task is very similar to DBQs, with which most DMV high school students are familiar.

Taking the essay section on the SAT is "optional," but about half of all colleges and universities still require or recommend it. The requirement or recommendation is rather random, except that small liberal arts colleges may be more likely than other colleges and universities to rely on other evidence of students' abilities to execute college-level writing tasks. Schools that receive a student's SAT essay score/s and don't require or recommend them will just ignore it/them. Taking the essay section of the SAT is a good idea for most students because, when they test, they haven't finalized application decisions, and because many will decide that they want to superscore across multiple tests. AP English classes and accompanying AP tests offer students other opportunities to demonstrate their writing abilities, as well as ways to waive college courses down the road.

Full disclosure: I own an academic prep and placement service at chevychaseprepdotcom

Father is elderly (will be early 70s when she finishes high school) and I have a cognitive debilitating disease that will escalate. I hoped that having DC take the SAT earlier will be less stress then later down the road. I was hoping taking it Freshman year would be good experience since she can learn to deal with the stress, etc. If she does well, it would be one less task for her to deal with. Is the Essay exam geared for AP Lit/AP Eng students? Can a Freshman handle the test? We have not prepped for the SAT so we are unaware.

Forget the writing portion.

Have her take a practice SAT test for free on the Khan Academy website. If her scores are really strong, then yes go ahead and test so early. If not, she realy should wait.

I apologize for the detour my question might result in. Does anyone know if the practice SAT test on the Khan Academy website is as tough as the actual SAT test. The reason I am asking is because my sophomore child did very well on the Khan academy practice test and based on that score we have decided not to pay for a prep class. However his sophomore official PSAT score was not as strong. He scored 1420/1500 on the actual PSAT and 1520/1600 on the Khan academy practice SAT

This was what I was told by my child's math teacher and chose to believe:

Most prep classes depend on old SAT exams to prepare students for the SAT Exam. When the SAT had changed the exam format, there was a drop in SAT averages. Currently, there are no prep tests that are close to the SAT exams since the format is new and no old exams in circulation. Khan Academy is the most helpful because it teaches the kids to understand the subject vs strategy to taking the exam. If your child did well on Khan Academy, they should do well on the SAT.

We did not prep nor has my child used Khan.

I am the PP (not the OP) thank you.