SAT Writing Section

1. SAT Writing Section Multiple Choice & Essay

2. Nuts and Bolts • Essay- first draft response to a given prompt; the goal is to assess your ability to develop and express ideas. • Develop a point of view, presents ideas logically and clearly, and uses precise language. • Multiple-choice- recognize sentence errors, choose best version of writing, improve paragraphs

3. Multiple-choice Questions • 49 questions on grammar and usage. • DON’T ask you to define or use grammatical terms. • DON’T test spelling or capitalization. • DO have you choose the best answer based on clarity, correct grammar

4. Writing Skills • Goal: to write with clarity and thought out ideas • To write better you have to write more. • To write better you have to read more. • When you read challenging material, to more you’ll be exposed to interesting and provocative ideas and to varied use of language.

5. Effective Writing • Characteristics: • Consistency • Sequence of tenses (After he broke his arm, he is home for two weeks.) • Shift of pronoun (If you are tense, one should try to relax.) • Parallelism (The carpenter showed us how to sink the nails, how to varnish the wood, and getting a smooth surface was also demonstrated.) • Subject-verb agreement (There is eight people on shore.)

6. Effective Writing • Logical expression of ideas: • Coordination and subordination (Nancy has a rash, and she is probably allergic to something.) • Logical comparison (Harry grew more vegetables than his neighbor’s garden.) • Modification and word order (Barking loudly, the tree had the dog’s leash wrapped around it.)

7. Effective Writing • Clarity and Precision: • Ambiguous and vague pronouns (In the newspaper they say that few people voted.) • Diction (He circumvented the globe on his trip.) • Wordiness (There are many problems in the contemporary world in which we live.) • Missing subject (If your car is parked here while not eating in the restaurant, it will be towed away.) • Weak passive verbs (When you bake a cake, the oven should be preheated.)

8. Effective Writing • Appropriate Use of Conventions: • Adjective and adverb confusion (His friends agree that he drives reckless.) • Pronoun case (He sat between you and I at the stadium.) • Idiom (Natalie had a different opinion towards her.) • Comparison of modifiers (Of the 16 executives, Meg makes more money.) • Sentence fragment (Whether or not the answer seems correct.) • Comma splice or fused sentence (Shawna enjoys puzzles, she works on one everyday.)

9. Approaches to Identifying Sentence Errors • Read each sentence quickly and carefully. • Read aloud during practice at home. • Look for the most common mistakes people make in grammar: subject/verb agreement, adjective/adverb confusion. • Look for errors in an idiom (words or phrases that are particular to our language because of what they mean when used together) Ex/talk behind someone’s back; not on someone’s back

10. Quick Grammar: Participles • Verb forms that function as adjectives. • In the present tense, participles always end in –ing (laughing, falling, gusting). Present participles • In the past tense, participles often end in –ed, -en, or –t (cooked, broken, spent, lost); some are irregular (bought, wrung) • Ex/Raw vegetables are more nutritious than cooked ones.

11. Quick Grammar: Participle Phrases • Group of words that begins with a participle. • The entire phrase is an adjective used to modify a noun. • Fix this: Tourists see statues of many famous patriots walking along Boston’s Freedom Trail. • What appears to be walking? • Tourists walking along Boston’s Freedom Trail see statues of many famous patriots.

12. Practice! • 1. I thought I heard a strange rattle driving my car. • 2. Strumming on his guitar, we suddenly remembered where we had seen this folk singer before. • 3. I turned the corner and bumped into an elderly man paying no attention to where I was going. • 4. The caterer served refreshments to the guests wearing a frilly white apron.

13. Practice! • 5. Orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, research astronomers discovered a new group of asteroids. • 6. I saw a long line of traffic looking both ways before I tried to cross the street. • 7. Raised in an open field without any pesticides, I prefer vegetables and fruits. • 8. Cooked too long, she thought the pasta did not taste good anymore. • 9. Spiced with Italian herbs, I had never tasted anything quite like Imelda’s salad. • 10. Wrapped in brightly colored paper, Matt tore open the birthday present.

14. Improving Sentences • Careful and close reading is key! • Focus: the ability to recognize and write clear, effective, accurate sentences. • Many questions deal with compound or complex sentences. • Compound sentence- has two or more independent clauses but no subordinate clause. Shelley was born in England, but he died in Italy. • Complex sentence- contains one independent clause and one or more subordinate clauses. • Although sailors encountered Shelley’s boat in a storm, Shelley refused their offer to go on board.

15. Using Parallelism • Using similar structures in a series. Creates balance in a sentence. • Ex/ Hawaii is famousfor its beautiful beaches, and Montana is well known for its majestic mountains. • Hawaii, Montana are the subjects. • Both described with adjectives – famous/well known • Both have a prepositional phrase that tells us for what they are famous/well known.

16. Parallelism • Sharon wanted to have the party at her house on Saturday night rather than in a restaurant on Sunday afternoon. • How is this balanced? • Always try to balance a word with a word, a phrase with a phrase, a clause with a clause.

17. Practice! • 1. On a hot day, I like swimming or to sit in the shade. • 2. The message was short, quiet, and what I couldn’t understand. • 3. I want to know when you are going to be home, where you will be if I need to call you, and the kind of transportation you are going to use to get there. • 4. A teacher needs patience and to be aware. • 5. I decided to buy the gift whether the store took credit cards or even making me pay cash.

18. Practice, con’t • 6. The legislature should approve the budget and can lower taxes if possible. • 7. The movie was not entertaining or a pleasant experience. • 8. She is hoping for a career in medicine, law, or to be an engineer. • 9. I try to be honest, hardworking, and to pay attention to my friends. • 10. The produce in that store is fresh, well displayed, and costs too much.