How to Improve Your Essay Score

Writing an essay is something of an art, even for Native English Speakers. Most test-takers are looking for the ‘rRight’ way to write their essays but unfortunately, there is no one real answer. The important thing about understanding how to write essays is that you need to be able to organize your Ideas in a clear and Logical way that makes sense to anyone reading it.

Keep It Simple

When we think of 'Formal Essays', we may be tricked into thinking that long sentences and big, fancy words are the only way to make your essay seem like you know what you’re talking about. While you probably do, if you use too many long, complicated sentences, it may not seem like that to the reader!

In fact, not only you more likely to make grammatical errors by extending your sentences, but the readers will lose interest halfway through because even the simple act of reading the sentence will be a Tedious Task. Your test assessors are not looking for long and impressive sentences, but ones that are clear and logical, that are able to convey clearly the idea you had in mind.Using a simple writing style, you won’t risk your Punctuation and using less complicated words will make sure that your examiner is able to understand what you are trying to say.

Planning

Many people run out of time when writing essays because they are going with the flow. When you do that, your arguments may change halfway through or you may realize you wanted to insert a sentence earlier on and will have to start over to make your changes. While the ideas do come to you on their own while you write, it is not practical when you are time-bound and working without a plan will take up more of your valuable time than if you were to put a few minutes aside to make one.

By having a solid plan in front of you, you know what you want to say and what message you want to get across, so you can perfect your essay as you write it.

The Right Format

When people think of essays, they think of an introduction, three paragraphs of the body and a conclusion. This is the ‘standard’ format for an essay, but it is not realistic to write one like this in a small amount of time. Remember, there is no ‘right’ format for your essay – it depends on what ideas you are trying to get across, the topic of your essay itself and what your conclusive statement is to be. All the ideas you get down in your essay should contribute in some way to your final statement (not necessarily your last sentence), which is to be a summary of your essay as a whole, to support it. As such, your formatting should do the same, and provide a logical flow to your ideas. This will make your essay easier to read, and will likely get you a higher score

Writing essays for standardized tests like the SAT and GRE is not easy, especially not in such a stressful, time-bound setting. However, when writing essays you should remember that you are not expected to be perfect, but your point should come across clearly.