Should You Plan on Doing the Essay Portion of the ACT or SAT?

It all seems a bit strange, doesn’t it? More than likely, to get accepted into the college of your choice, a high school student will need to take either the ACT or the SAT standardized test. There isn’t much of a way around it. The four-year colleges want to see how well you perform on at least one of these assessments. The strange part is how you have the “option” of completing the essay portion section. These are basically mandatory tests for prospective college students, but yet they are asking you to decide if you would like to take the writing section or not.

If only it were all so easy. Don’t be fooled. You more than likely are not going to be the one to decide.

Make the Decision Carefully

Let’s run through the options here to better understand it. Of course, you can choose not to do the essay portion on either test. However, you may be kicking yourself in the near future.

If you decide not to take the essay portion, you may be patting yourself on the back that day as it saves you a bit of time. But there could be something you overlooked. Your college of choice may have a requirement that all of their future students must take the essay portion. And if you had decided to skip it, then you have some bad news coming your way.

You can’t take the essay portion of the test on its own. That means if you choose not to take it the first time around and your dream college tells you that you must indeed complete that section, you must take the whole ACT or SAT all over again.

So What Should You Do?

Mark Twain has a well-known quote that fits well in this situation. Twain said, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

Twain meant two things with this quote. First, don’t put off something you have to do until later. You aren’t doing yourself any favors. Second, he implied that you should tackle your biggest task first and then complete the smaller ones later on.

For either assessment, the essay portion will take about 50 minutes. And while I am the first to admit that all writing is subjective up to a degree, aren’t you at least interested how well you would score on the optional essay?

If you are apprehensive about how you will perform on the entire ACT or SAT, or you are just mainly worried about the essay portion, iAchieve can definitely be of assistance. We offer specific tutoring to your needs for these assessments. If you want to concentrate on just Math, we can do this. If you are concerned about Reading, we can focus on this. Whatever your needs, we can work with you so you are fully prepared when you take the assessment on that fateful day!

Written by: Ryan Crawley

Learn More

Inside Look: What is the Purpose of Standardized Tests?

New Tests, New Essays: A How-to for Writing the Updated ACT and SAT Essays

How Early Should I Start Preparing for the ACT or SAT?