SAT Writing Guide

All lessons are based on official exams The College Board has released. Nothing else. Because there are only 44 questions on the writing test, how often each topic shows up can vary widely.

  1. Relative Clauses (foundational knowledge)
  2. Prepositional phrases (foundational knowledge)
  3. Idioms (0-5%)
  4. Subject-Verb Agreement (2-7%)
  5. Modifiers (0-5%)
  6. Run-ons (5-7%)
  7. Fragments (0-5%)
  8. Redundancy (5-9%)
  9. Parallelism (2-5%)
  10. Pronoun Reference (5-7%)
  11. Tenses (0-5%)
  12. Commas, Dashes, and Colons (9-20%)
  13. Apostrophes (2-5%)
  14. Word Choice (7-16%)
  15. Transitions (2-11%)
  16. Topic, Conclusion, and Transition Sentences (0-9%)
  17. Supporting Evidence and Examples (2-9%)
  18. Relevance and Purpose (9-22%)
  19. Placement (5-7%)
  20. Point of View (0-2%)
  21. Comparatives vs. Superlatives (hasn't shown up directly, but you should know it)
  22. Who vs. Whom (0-2%)
  23. Combining Sentences (5%)
  24. Data Interpretation (2-5%)—mostly practice questions, only available in the paperback guide
  25. Odds and Ends

Need more practice? Prefer a book with everything in one place? Buy the paperback guide. It contains over 500 practice questions (grouped by topic so you can reinforce what you learn at the end of each chapter) and 3 practice tests as extra material not found here.


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