McGraw-Hill's Conquering SAT Writing, Second Edition

Home >
Browse >
McGraw-Hill's Conquering SAT Writing, Second Edition

McGraw-Hill's Conquering SAT Writing, Second Edition

Authors: Christopher Black

Published: October 2010

eISBN: 9780071749145 0071749144 | ISBN: 9780071749138

Contents

About the College Hill Method

Acknowledgments

Part I: Introduction

Lesson 1: The importance of good writing skills

Writing: a tool for success

Why students are not being prepared for college writing

Beware the pitfalls of academic-speak

Beware the salespeople

The real "secret" to acing the SAT essay

Lesson 2: The SAT Writing

What does the SAT Writing test?

What's on the SAT Writing?

What is the experimental section?

What will I be asked to write about on the essay?

How is the essay scored?

How will colleges use the SAT Writing score?

Isn't it true that Ernest Hemingway would have failed the SAT essay?

Don't the essay graders give scores based primarily on length and number of paragraphs?

Will colleges see my SAT essay?

How is the overall Writing score determined?

Are some SATs easier than others?

If I take the SAT, will I also have to take the SAT II: Writing?

Part II: The Essay

Lesson 3: Lay the groundwork

1. Know what the readers are looking for

2. Read good persuasive prose

3. Learn to read like a writer

4. Be specific

5. Prepare with Source Summaries

6. Practice

7. Know the instructions

8. Overcome perfectionism

Lesson 4: Analyze the writing task

1. Give yourself time to think

2. Read the assignment carefully

3. Define your terms to show your point of view

4. Stay focused on the question

Lesson 5: Gather your ideas

1. Brainstorm examples before picking a thesis

2. Keep your mind open

3. Choose specific examples

4. Choose interesting examples

5. Choose manageable examples

Lesson 6: Organize your essay

1. Craft your thesis

2. Write a manageable outline

3. Connect your ideas logically

4. Play devil's advocate

Lesson 7: Write the essay

1. Use natural language

2. Use strong verbs

3. Write with personality and intelligence

4. Use personal and concrete nouns

5. Minimize jargon and slang

6. Eliminate wordiness

7. Minimize prepositional phrases

8. Eliminate redundancy

9. Don't state the obvious

10. Eliminate clichés

11. Connect your thoughts logically

12. Vary your sentence structure and length wisely

13. Eliminate sentences to nowhere

14. Choose your words carefully

15. Explain but don't overexplain

16. Leave your reader thinking

17. Don't tell us what you're doing—just do it

Answer Key

Lesson 8: Practice your essay writing skills

1. Practice essays

2. Sample graded essays

Part III: The Multiple-Choice Questions

Lesson 9: Improving sentences

1. How to attack Improving Sentences questions

2. Be careful

3. All else being equal, shorter is better

4. Check for danglers

5. Watch out for extra problems

Answer Key

Lesson 10: Identifying sentence errors

1. How to attack Identifying Sentence Errors questions

2. Make sure it's a legitimate mistake

3. How to attack tough Identify Sentence Errors questions

Answer Key

Lesson 11: Improving paragraphs

1. How to attack Improving Paragraphs questions

2. Consider your attack options

Answer Key

Part IV: The Fundamental Rules of Grammar for Writing and Editing

Interlude: Keeping perspective

1. Don't sweat the small stuff

2. Don't worry about who vs. whom

3. Don't worry about split infinitives

4. Don't worry about ending a sentence with a preposition

5. Don't worry about starting a sentence with And, But, or Because

6. Don't worry about starting sentences with adverbs like Hopefully or Clearly

7. Don't worry about possessive antecedents

8. Don't worry about that vs. which

9. Don't worry too much about bad/badly and good/well

10. Don't worry about disappearing thats

11. Don't worry about disappearing words, as long as they are implied by parallelism

Lesson 12: The parts of speech

1. Words are what words do

2. Verbs—the sentence drivers

3. Nouns

4. Clauses

5. Pronouns

6. Prepositions

7. Prepositional phrases

8. Modifiers

9. Participles

Lesson 13: Subject-verb agreement

1. Subject-verb agreement

2. Inverted sentences

3. Intervening words

4. Tricky subjects

5. Trimming sentences

6. Tips for improving your essay

7. Tips for the multiple-choice questions

Answer Key

Lesson 14: Parallelism

1. The law of parallelism

2. Infinitives and gerunds

3. Parallel constructions

4. Tip for improving your essay

5. Tip for the multiple-choice questions

Answer Key

Lesson 15: Comparison problems

1. Illogical comparisons

2. Check for countability: fewer/less, number/amount, and many/much

3. Check the number: more/most, between/among, and -er/-est

4. Number shift

5. Tip for improving your essay

6. Tip for the multiple-choice questions

Answer Key

Lesson 16: Pronoun problems

1. Pronoun-antecedent agreement

2. Missing or ambiguous antecedents

3. Pronoun consistency

4. Pronoun case

5. Subjective pronouns

6. Objective pronouns

7. Possessive pronouns

8. Reflexive pronouns

9. Tip for improving your essay

10. Tip for the multiple-choice questions

Answer Key

Lesson 17: Modifier problems

1. Dangling and misplaced participles

2. Other misplaced modifiers

3. Confusing adjectives and adverbs

4. Comparative adjectives and adverbs

5. Redundancy

6. Tip for improving your essay

7. Tip for the multiple-choice questions

Answer key

Lesson 18: Tense and voice problems

1. Tricky tenses

2. The perfect tenses

3. Verbs expressing ideas or works of art

4. The passive voice

5. Tip for improving your essay

6. Tips for the multiple-choice questions

Answer Key

Lesson 19: Idiom problems

1. What is an idiom?

2. Watch your prepositions

3. Tip for improving your essay

4. Tip for the multiple-choice questions

Answer Key

Lesson 20: Mood problems

1. The subjunctive mood

2. Don't overdo it

3. Watch your ifs

4. Tip for improving your essay

5. Tip for the multiple-choice questions

Answer Key

Lesson 21: Diction problems

1. What is a diction error?

2. Common diction errors

3. Tip for improving your essay

4. Tip for the multiple-choice questions

Answer Key

Lesson 22: Irregular verbs

1. Past participles

2. Common irregular verbs

3. Tip for improving your essay

4. Tip for the multiple-choice questions

Answer Key

Lesson 23: Awkwardness and coordination

1. Coordinating ideas

2. Run-on sentences

3. Using colons and semicolons

4. Tips for improving your essay

5. Tips for the multiple-choice questions

Answer Key

Part V: Three Practice Tests

Practice Test 1

Practice Test I Answer Key

Score Conversion Table

Practice Test I—Sample Essays

Practice Test 1 Detailed Answer Key

Practice Test 2

Practice Test 2 Answer Key

Score Conversion Table

Practice Test 2—Sample Essays

Practice Test 2 Detailed Answer Key

Practice Test 3

Practice Test 3 Answer Key

Score Conversion Table

Practice Test 3—Sample Essays

Practice Test 3 Detailed Answer Key