Most students often struggle writing the ACT essay, which is part of their standardized test. Luckily, this article will show how this type of essay works and tips to help you get a better score. If you want to get a good ACT score, you definitely need to work on your essay. While getting a perfect score on your ACT essay is not easy to do, you can learn through practice provided you know what is required of you. Below are ACT essay tips that will show you how to write an ACT essay in simple steps.
Step 1: Proper planning
If you want to know how to write ACT essay, you need to have a plan or outline to ensure your writing is flawless. Planning is something you cannot really omit as far as writing an ACT essay is concerned. Organizing your train of thought as you continue writing your essay is time-consuming than when you have an ACT essay structure before you start writing.
Read the topic subject and all the perspectives provided. Before you address the connection between your chosen perspective and one of the perspectives required for the task, you need to ensure you understand the topic or subject. Secondly, you should choose the type of perspective that you can fully support. As a suggestion, you can find several useful ACT essay examples online.
Step 2: Brainstorm evidence to support your perspectives
Since an ACT essay requires to you discuss the connection between your own perspective and one of the perspectives given, and not just the perspective that appeals to you. Essentially, you need to use several types of evidence as you write your ACT essay.
During brainstorming, if you realize that you can find better evidence to fully support a new perspective than the one you had chosen, it is always possible to make a switch. You also don’t need to write complete sentences when brainstorming or phrase your wording elegantly as if you are writing the final copy.
Here is an ACT essay format that can help you look for examples and evidence:
The opening paragraph
By browsing through ACT sample essays, you can learn how you should draft the opening paragraph when you start your essay prompt. You can use appropriate examples in your essay as you see fit.
Personal experience
An excellent way to support your points is by telling a personal or fictional story. You can also use real or fictional statistics to support your points. For example, you can invent a study that somewhat supports the given perspectives.
Use information from specific sources
You can use your knowledge of current or historical events to try and support your perspectiveS. If you don’t know all the details, there is no need for you to worry. Essay graders cannot deduct points if you provide inaccurate factual information. From several ACT essay examples, you can highlight the advantages of social media interaction to pinpoint how the internet has led to ”endless possibilities”.
Step 3: Structure your essay
Once you write down the main talking points for your essay, you need to try and organize them for clarity of thought. You should write down a thesis statement on your introductory paragraph, as well as a conclusion to your findings. You can also include transition when organizing your essay, or just include them when you are writing your final copy.
Paragraph 1 Example
For example, on perspective one, you can argue that the increasing use of technology can easily make us lose some of our humanity since even the most mundane encounters don’t require respect and courtesy from the community.
I recently witnessed this at home after watching my brother constantly interacting with friends online. He sometimes gets very frustrated when there is no internet service, and he becomes jumpy and irritable.
Despite this kind of frustration, I still believe that the internet has far many benefits that outweigh the challenges, such as social media addiction. Many websites today provide useful information to help people manage their use of social media.
Conclusion
Rather than affecting our sense of humanity, technology can help to enhance modernization and lead to increased productivity at the workplace.
When you complete structuring your ACT essay format, you will have about half an hour left to write down your essay. When you don’t have enough time, simply remove some of the counterarguments/explanations that you had written down.
Step 4: Your introduction paragraph or thesis
You should write a captivating introduction. Think of something interesting that can help you elaborate on your thesis. If you are stuck on the introduction and don’t know what to write, you can leave a blank space at the top of your paper, and you can write it later on.
Ensure you clearly define your thesis. Before writing your essay, you should consider whether your perspective is related to the subject and find out how it connects to the perspectives detailed in your prompt.
Step 5: Body paragraphs
Before you write down your body paragraph, you should reflect on the first sentence of your first paragraph. You need to start a paragraph by referencing back to your thesis so that you can write a solid argument.
When you complete your essay, you should think of a simple sentence that reaffirms your thesis and uses is, to sum up, your essay.
In conclusion, instead of affecting our humanity or leading to addiction, technology can help us gain important strides in unimagined possibilities.
Step 6: Revision
You need about 2-4 minutes to revise your work. After you complete your ACT essay, revision is of the utmost importance. You need to fix grammatical errors or improve your arguments if you don’t think they are reasonable. Re-read your essay several times to see where you can make changes if need be.
Important information to remember when writing an ACT essay.
You should plan your essay for about 6-10 minutes before you begin writing. You can use the time limits included in the articles as a basis for planning your essay. Give yourself more time as you prepare your essay and then work on that time frame.
You can research on ACT essay- frequently asked questions to help you create a good outline for your essay. Remember to read on the essentials of ACT writing, and learn the many ways you can implement the explanations and strategies that you learn into your essay.
If you have previously done the ACT essay and you are not sure you can get a perfect score, remember that regular practice will ultimately improve your chances of getting a good score.
Here’s how you can practice writing your ACT essay
- You can list down all evidence examples, either from history or from personal experience. Find out the experiences you can use to support your argument.
- Practice writing the essay by timing yourself as you would in a real test to learn how you can improve your writing speed.
- Try and grade your ACT essay using the writing rubric. If you want to improve your writing, the writing rubric can help you spot weak areas, and you will learn what you can do when times run out, and yet you haven’t finished your essay.
- Stay confidents! Remember, an ACT essay is not any different from a puzzle. The more you practice, the better.