Sat essay rubric pdf

New SAT Essay Scoring Criteria. The essay components are Reading, Analysis, and Writing. Reading refers to how well you demonstrate understanding of the text; analysis covers how well you examine the structure and components of it, and writing, as you might expect, assesses your ability to write clear, correct, and cohesive prose.

Unless you’re in a creative writing class – and sometimes even then – you’ll be given directions about the format and general topic of the essay, and how well you follow those directions counts in your grade. The same thing applies to the SAT essay.

SAT readers/scorers are generally high school or college teachers with experience in reading and grading essays. They’re thoroughly trained, have to pass tests to qualify as SAT readers, and once certified, are expected to absolutely conform to the scoring rubric—no personal opinions, no comments—just a number score from the rubric.

Test Length. The SAT Essay is 50 minutes in length. The passage you’ll read and analyze is about the same length as the longest passage you’ll see on the SAT Reading Test, and you’ll need to spend a fair amount of time reading, selectively rereading, analyzing, and drawing evidence from it in order to do well.