Tip #45 to Get a Top SAT Critical Reading Score

The next body paragraph should finish demonstrating your thesis. Like other body paragraphs, it should be organized around a specific example. Ideally, it smoothly links to your previous body paragraph(s).

Let's look at this question:

Solution: The paragraph that you wrote should revolve on one main idea, contain specific details, and demonstrate your thesis. Let's look at Alex's 12:

Society today is less physically brutal, but just as mentally brutal, more so, some might argue. Our Capitalist society is run by greed and competition. Businesses achieve so much because their competitors are always right on their tails. It's a continuous scramble to the top, and the first one there's the winner. Our government is a system of checks and balances because nobody trusts anybody else. Our society is founded on the presumption that mankind is inherently evil. And that presumption has brought our society power and riches.

Alex began with a great transition linking this to the previous paragraph. He made several generalizations, but followed up with specific references such as "checks and balances" and "founded on the presumption . . . " This paragraph demonstrates his point that self-interest motivates people and that "our society" is run by greed.

Notice that Alex's essay is awesome, but not perfect. You cannot make a perfect essay in 25 minutes. They know that and allow for it. They call this allowance "holistic grading." They don't have a checklist, grade each item, and add up your points. Instead, they look at the essay as a whole and say, "Okay, he had good solid organization, a few spelling errors, but wow, he blew me away with details and depth. I'll give it a 12." If you give them what they want (structure, transitions, details, depth), you get a high score. This makes the essay easy to ace.

Example Problems

Let's see the next body paragraph(s) for each topic:

1. Assignment: Is it better to be compliant or to challenge the status quo?



2. Assignment: Has materialism helped society?