SAT™ Writing & Language Section: Overview & Skills Tested
Contents
What is the Writing & Language Section?
The Writing & Language section is a crucial part of the Evidence-Based Reading and Writing portion of the exam. It’s designed to assess your ability to revise and edit text, skills essential for college and career readiness. This isn’t about creative writing; it’s about making passages clear, concise, and grammatically correct. Think of yourself as an editor, polishing and improving existing writing.
The Writing & Language section presents you with four passages, each accompanied by 11 multiple-choice questions, for a total of 44 questions. You’ll have 35 minutes to complete this section. This means you have to work efficiently, spending roughly 49 seconds on each question. Good time management is critical for success.
Skills Tested
The questions on this section assess a range of skills, broadly categorized as follows:
Command of Evidence
These questions ask you to improve the way passages develop information and ideas. You might be asked to:
- Add supporting details or evidence.
- Choose the best placement for a sentence.
- Interpret graphs or charts related to the passage.
- Improve the logical flow of a paragraph.
Words in Context
These questions focus on your ability to improve word choice. You’ll need to:
- Choose the most precise and appropriate word for a given context.
- Improve the style and tone of a passage.
- Eliminate redundancy and wordiness.
Analysis in History/Social Studies and in Science
Some passages will be related to history/social studies or science topics. Questions linked to those passages could make you:
- Analyze data.
- Evaluate the writer’s interpretation of an event.
- Improve, add or delete graphics that are related to the text.
Expression of Ideas
These questions assess your ability to organize sentences and paragraphs effectively, ensuring smooth transitions and logical flow. You may need to:
- Determine the best order of sentences within a paragraph.
- Choose the best introductory or concluding sentence.
- Identify and correct problems with sentence structure.
Standard English Conventions
This is where your grammar knowledge comes into play. Expect to be tested on:
- Sentence Structure: Identifying and correcting problems like fragments, run-ons, and misplaced modifiers.
- Verb Tense and Agreement: Making sure verbs agree with their subjects and are in the correct tense.
- Pronoun Agreement and Case: Ensuring pronouns agree with their antecedents and are used in the correct case (e.g., I vs. me).
- Parallelism: Maintaining consistent structure in lists and phrases.
- Comparisons and Modifiers: Using comparative and superlative forms correctly and placing modifiers appropriately.
- Punctuation: Correctly using commas, semicolons, colons, apostrophes, dashes, and end punctuation. Take a deeper look at Punctuation.
- Learn more on all the Grammar Rules.
How to Prepare
Effective prep is key to improving your score. Here’s what you can do:
- Practice, Practice, Practice: Take plenty of practice tests to familiarize yourself with the question types and time constraints. The more you practice, the more comfortable you’ll become with the format and the types of errors you need to identify.
- Review Grammar Rules: Brush up on the fundamentals of English grammar. A strong understanding of grammar is the foundation for success on this section.
- Read Widely: Reading a variety of texts, articles, essays, news reports, can help you develop an intuitive sense of good writing style and grammar.
- Focus on Your Weaknesses: Identify the areas where you struggle the most and dedicate extra time to those topics.
By understanding the structure of the Writing & Language section and diligently practicing the skills it tests, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your target score. Our “with Panchi” app can be a helpful resource during your preparation, providing additional instruction and practice questions. You can find more information about our product throughout this site. Good luck with your preparation!
