The most interesting - and welcome - features of the new 2016 verbal SAT:

• authentic reading material, the kind students typically read in the classroom (eg. a section of the Gettysburg Address).
• an emphasis on analysis by asking students factual and stylistic questions (eg. "How does Lincoln's argument progress?" "What techniques does he use to give emphasis to his speech?")
• vocabulary questions using words likely to have been met in students' studies (eg. "protagonist", "empirical")
• optional essay question analyzing a passage in which students demonstrate evidence-based skills (eg. an author's use of facts or examples).

"Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen." Willa Cather.

What is your opinion of the following as the first draft of a reflection on writing?
    Over the four years I have been in high school, my writing has never ceased to improve. I have had four different teachers over four years, who have all changed my writing in different ways. Each year, I altered my writing process slightly to better suit my needs. An example of a change in my writing process is how I came up with my own unique prewriting method. Every class that I have attended always featured discussion along with explication of the current text, which I found helpful. These discussions, along with analytical works, have cultivated my ability to analyze text thoroughly and effectively. While I still make errors, markedly with the same tense throughout a paper, the quality of my writing has improved to a point I never thought I would achieve.
    My writing process usually entails attempting to silence everything around me in order to concentrate and formulate thoughts. I have to subverse myself within the work to attain my desired thoughts and pay attention to every detail the writer is trying to convey in their work.

What are some strengths of this piece?

•  Good ideas such as the role of teachers, class discussions and prewriting in helping to improve writing.
•  Good verbs such as attended, convey and formulated.
•  Nice sentence ending “….thoroughly and effectively.”

What are some problems?

•  Words which can be cut (eg. that) or replaced for the sake of clarity (eg. markedly).
•  Sentences which can be combined to make each carry more meaning, avoid repetition and create sentence variety (eg. the last two sentences of the second paragraph).
•  The word writing  which occurs in each of the first four lines.

   Vance Packard wrote a pioneering book on advertising called The Hidden Persuaders. Hidden or otherwise, we are all persuaders, advertising our ideas or interesting others in our experiences, which is why everyone needs to know how to write – for school and college courses, proficiency tests, college applications, careers, and one’s own satisfaction.

         There are no miraculous weight loss programs and there is no magic writing formula.  Nevertheless, like many crafts we can all become better writers by being taught the required skills creatively and engagingly, in a step-by-step approach that replaces confusion with confidence, a blank page with bold paragraphs.