SAT/AP Writing Tips Part 2

Want to feel better about yourself?

Read writing that you wrote nearly a half decade ago.  Heh.  Heh.  Heh.

Eh.

Ehhh...

...ehhhhhhhhhh...

*silent crying*

AAANYWAY, welcome back to Clove's School of Crushing the College Board, aka. how to survive child torture, where yours truly gives you a few tips and tricks on how to annihilate the hopes and dreams of the College Board.  For the first part of this series, keep scrolling down past this post, you lazy link-glutton.

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NUMBER 4 - ORGANIZATION
As I mentioned, both the SAT and the AP English tests give time for and advocate that you devote some time to organizing your paper.  While they advocate this, it is not necessary, but IN CLOVE'S SCHOOL OF CRUSHING THE COLLEGE BOARD MRAHUAHUAHUAHUA IT DEFINITELY IZZZ.
That is, unless if you're an INFP or an INFJ and have been gifted with your personal Muses.  All other types have no allowances and must devote at least a little bit of time to preparing themselves for writing because, unfortunately, we're not fairies.
Taking a minute to organize your thoughts and pick a steady, certain stance with definable arguments is invaluable.  Do eetz.

NUMBER 5 - BREAK TIME
In the SAT, you get around three breaks, depending on how the government of your classroom runs.  (Some proctors have been tyrants for me, demanding that we take all of the breaks; others have been democratic, letting us choose which breaks we want/feel like we need.)  Because the breaks that you actually receive vary in frequency and length (depending on the size of your testing group - it takes time to herd fifty or so chatty teenagers back into a room and get them seated), you should devote your time to using them efficiently, especially on the AP English exams, which require lots of mental focus and mental clarity.
A few things you should always do:
1.) Use the restroom.  Even if you don't feel like using it now, you'll need to in another hour when you're in the middle of reading a really complex passage.  Plus, it gives you an opportunity to...
2.) Get up and walk.  Breathe.  Your brain needs oxygen to work; it's a muscle too.
3.) Even better, spend a little time humming.  Singing releases endorphins (to make you feel better about the too-many problems you guessed), serves as an aerobic exercise, and provides other benefits.
4.) Lastly, eat and drink water.  Shoot for something low-carb to keep you from having energy spikes and something non-hassle so that you can eat quickly.  (I normally bring a bag of nuts, a pre-peeled orange, and ice water.)
If you do all of these things systematically and calmly, you can actually get a lot of relaxing done in ten minutes.

NUMBER 6 - PASSAGE-READING-BASED QUESTIONS
On the SAT and on the AP English Language test, you often have to do passage-reading-based questions, which is where the College Board throws long, tedious, and often ambiguous (sarcasm and cynicism are hard to detect in writing) passages at you and then demands you answer questions about the passage.
If you want help in actually learning how to read the passage and answer the questions, go to Schmoop or find the Big Blue SAT Book of Devour-Clove's-Summer-Time, which your local bookstore probably sells for double your weight in gold.  They'll sort you out on the actual solving of the answers.
Here, at Clove's School of CRUSHING THE COLLEGE BOARD MRRRWAHAHAHAHAHA, I just wanted to reinforce something that most SAT prep-books will tell you: use your pencil to mark up a passage, especially if you're a read/write learner, a visual learner, or a kinesthetic learner.  Before I even start reading, I look through all of the questions, find all the ones that say, "In lines 3 - 7," and then underline lines 3 - 7 (or whatever numbers have you) while skimming over the question's answers.  Thus, I get a general idea of what to look for when I'm reading.
Sure, by the time you've gone through all of the questions this way, you've basically marked up the entire passage.  The goal of this exercise is not to actually eliminate the bits and pieces of writing that you don't need to read, which is a lie that some SAT prep-books tell you; it's to help you connect the passage to the questions so that you don't waste time flipping back from a question to the passage and asking, "What the what?  Where am I?  What are they talking about?  Ehhh, I'll just go back ten lines and start reading there."

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Anyway, hopefully this will prove helpful in the lives of poor, abused teenagers everywhere.  Now, if you don't mind, the College Board is banging on my front door and threatening that, if I don't come out, they'll make me take the new and "improved" SAT.  Thus, your author takes her leave.

Write on!
Clove