Getting the Wickets
Now that the planning is done, let's get on with the implementation- take over the field, so to say!
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Ever seen S. Sreesanth bowl? He gets ready for a run up, bends down contemplating his run up, looks at the batsman like he is going to decimate him and then takes off. That is what is needed. An understanding of the Topic. Don't launch into your essay until your topic is something you find concrete and manageable
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Just like you need to know which ball to bowl, you need to develop a point of view about the issue because the essay depends on how you write, not what you write about. 'Do all established traditions deserve to remain in existence? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue.' Your point of view needs to be established. Believe it or not, just content has little to no meaning on the SAT essay, what is important is that you establish your view and present it well.
Like
a bowler plans for the over ahead, you also need to know where
each one of your paragraphs are leading you to.
Its called jotting
down an outline and that is what you need to do for the first 4-5
minutes. Just scribble down a few words reminding yourself of
what you want each paragraph to say. It makes the actually
writing of the essay much easier. It helps in two
ways-
B. Second, even if you've thought through the essay before you begin to write, by the time you come to the end of the first paragraph, you may find you've forgotten all about the structure that seemed so clear only five minutes earlier.
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The essay is assigned to give you an opportunity to show how well you can write. After the outline that you jot down, decide in your head what will be the beginning, middle, and end of the essay before you put pen to paper. Take care to express your thoughts on the topic clearly and effectively.
- I know a kid, who said that what made the difference in his first SAT score and the second one was that in the first one, he just rambled, whereas in the second one he started with a quote and used one literary example and one personal example. Point being-Don't think too hard on what to write about. Once you have a grasp of the topic, a point of view to support and a rough layout of your essay just begin writing. Avoid basic grammatical mistakes, and include some of those numerous words you learnt up.
- Now that you're all planned out to bowl a 'googly' don't just jump into the essay and start writing all your ideas in one paragraph. Have your essay move from idea to idea in order to prove a point. Let each of your paragraphs exhibit that one idea only which you follow up, build up and then relate with in the next paragraph.
- Its time to knock those wickets out! If you have figured out and planned where your ball will be landing you still need to bowl those balls that ace the batsmen? We'll call it the execution! What makes your essay rich, expressive, vivid and different from everyone else's are the examples. This is your opportunity to impress the evaluators. Provide examples that are concrete, specific, and impressive.
- Let's say a prompt asks you if heroes are recognized today? A real life example would be to correlate heroes to the soldier next door who lost his leg, but what will impress more is a current event example from the Iraq War of the unsung heroes or better still a historical example of the heroes of the World War II.
- Make sure that you are well read on current events and a bit on history. This will probably be good enough. Following which, while literary and historical examples are needed, it is not as if heavy examples alone are going to sway an examiner where simpler examples can also do. So don't waste time thinking up examples.
- How well you write is much more important than how much you write! But to cover the topic adequately you will probably need to write more than one paragraph The directions might have you believe that length matters not a whit in comparison to content. Don't believe the directions, because unless you want the examiner to think you sat for the essay and then decided to enjoy the view - Length is important. Two -three hastily written paragraphs are just as likely to go 'wide' as a ball that slips through the bowlers fingers.
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