Running out of time on the SAT Essay What to do

Oh no! Youre in the middle of writing a beautiful SAT essay and as youre flexing  out a cramp in your hand, you glance at the clock and you notice that you only have 5 minutes left to finish. ONLY. FIVE. MINUTES. Your mortal enemy right now Although the urge to panic might be overwhelming at this  moment, take a deep breath and consider the following advice if you find yourself running out of time on the SAT essay. Note: This advice is written as if: you already have an introductory paragraph with a central claim or thesis (at the most basic, this would be something stating that you think the author was effective in making their argument). you have already identified and outlined 2, preferably 3, examples from the reading that shows how the author used evidence, rhetorical devices, reasoning, or other techniques to effectively argue their point. you have an understanding that each example needs its own paragraph in the body If you want to be successful at the SAT essay, mastering the previous three points are the first step. If you look at Sample #2  for this official College Board writing prompt, you can see that even good writers will get a low writing sub-score if they do not follow the above format. 1 to 2  paragraphs written on your SAT essay Im not going to lie. If youve only written 1 or 2 paragraphs and you are running out of time, you are not in an ideal situation. But heres how to make the best of it: Just focus on the body and finishing as much of it as you can. Because there are three sub-scores (writing, analysis, and comprehension), there are different ways of approaching this. If you have a really good understanding of one example and why it is effective, focus on developing that paragraph in attempts to increase your analysis and/or writing score. If not, you can flesh  out your entire body, with each paragraph having one sentence describing one  example and at least one sentence describing why its  effective. This might  help you get a better reading comprehension score because you show how you  understand more parts of the reading. 3 paragraphs written on your SAT essay If youre in this case,  you still have a good shot of getting a decent score on the essay. If youre out of examples to explore, proofread the essay and write the conclusion. If you still have one more example, explore the heck out of that example!! Dont worry about proofreading or writing the conclusion unless you still have time at the end; if you did everything else perfectly, theres a possibility that you can scrape an 8 on the essay! 4  paragraphs written on your SAT essay Congrats! With your intro and body paragraphs written already, youre not necessarily running out of time. You might even  have time  to proofread and write a conclusion. Still, its important to know how to best use your time in these crucial minutes. As 5 minutes may not be enough time for both, its up to you to decide  which one goes first.  If  you know or are  worried that youre prone to a lot of errors when writing a timed essay, definitely proofread first. Note that  this is NOT the time to add new ideas.  If you have time, try to write a quick conclusion if you can, but honestly, not having a conclusion probably wont break your essay. The sample essays from College Board seem to show  that 6-scoring essays are totally  possible without a conclusion. If youre confident in your lack of errors, by all means, write your conclusion first and proofread last.   How to avoid running out of time in the first place If youre struggling to complete the SAT essay during the allotted time in the  practice sessions, it is crucial that you practice how to improve your reading and/or writing speed. Take advantage of the  new SAT essay prompts  from College Board and the sample  essay  passages  at Magoosh  so that you dont find yourself in this situation on the real thing. Also make sure to read our post on the  top 10 new SAT essay tips!