VB’s Guide to the ACT Essay

Preface

I decided to write this up since quite a few people have approached me asking for the resources
that I used to achieve a high score on the essay portion of the ACT. I would like to credit
PrepScholar for writing a superb article that details this, but I feel like at times it is a bit
redundant and doesn't really emphasize certain things.

By using this template alone, you can guarantee yourself ​at least​ an 8/12 (I will show you how
these points are gained), and if you use it in conjunction with the other tips I give you can get up
to 10 or even 11. Aiming for a 12/12 is ​not​ necessary, it is incredibly rare, practically impossible
to do, and means little for college admissions.

Also, in case you’re wondering, I scored an 11/12 on the essay with no practice whatsoever,
and just by following this template 20 mins before I reached the test center. So, without further
ado...

Organization and Planning

In high school, you may be used to writing 5 paragraph essays (1 intro, 3 bp, 1 conclusion). For
the ACT essay, this is no different. You have 40 minutes to do all of the essay and I suggest
spending at least 5 minutes but no more than 10 minutes planning the essay. There is no point
going straight to writing something that you haven't planned out. To help illustrate and explain
what I'm saying better, I will use the following example from the released April test.
I recommend reading the entire paragraph at the top. It provides contextual information and gets
your mind working and thinking about the topic. Then, you will be presented with 3 perspectives,
often in which one is really extreme, one is "normal" but still a bit extreme, and one is typically
"normal". Let me illustrate this:

Perspective 1:​ "we become self-centered, unsympathetic people" don't you think that this is a
pretty extreme way to describe social media?

Perspective 3:​ "many of our personal and even societal conflicts occur because our digital
communication is commonly misinterpreted". Really? Do people really fight all the time and
many of society's problems result because of the absence of "language and tone" in digital
communication?

Perspective 2:​ you might have noticed that this is the one that is the most "normal" compared
to the other 2.

What I suggest doing for the essay (and what helped me) is to pick ​ONE​ of the perspectives to
agree with, and disagree with the other 2. Even if you agree with more than one, pick just one
and pretend like you're against the other two. For the purposes of this example, I will be
supporting perspective 2, and against 1 and 3.

Body Paragraphs
No, I didn't forget the introduction. But we'll get to that later. For the layout of the 3 body
paragraphs, structure it like this:
BP1: Perspective 1 (Disagree)
BP2: Perspective 3 (Disagree)
BP3: Perspective 2 (Agree)

You may recall your English high school teacher telling you to put your weakest points first and
saving your best point for last. This is the same thing here. It is much easier to write much more
for the final body paragraph for something we agree with than something we might (or partly)
disagree with.

For the first body paragraph, start off with a clear topic sentence. This is
SUPER​ easy to do because the perspectives are structured to help you.
Don't you see that the first sentence of all 3 perspectives are "facts" then
the second sentence that follows is an opinion? You can clearly see it if
you look at “Perspective 1”, for example. Its first sentence is clearly a fact,
something that you can get behind, whereas the second is an (extreme)
opinion. So all you need to do is say something like: ​"While perspective
one is correct in that as our methods of communication become more
impersonal our communications weaken, it is incorrect because we do not
become self-centered, unsympathetic people."​ What I did there was take the first sentence (fact)
and say that it is true (because it is a fact) but disagree with the second sentence which is
opinion.

Now that the topic sentence is out of the way, what you will do for the 1st and 2nd BP (the ones
you disagree with) is start off by ​crediting​ their idea. This is because ACT readers want to see
that you're able to take in a wide variety of perspectives and agree (but also disagree) with them
to credit yours. So for the 1st BP, after our topic sentence, we will write a couple sentences
talking about how it is partly right. To do this, we will use either p​ersonal anecdotes or made
up evidence​. For example:

"A recent survey done by Harvard University shows that 90% of respondents indeed find that
digital communication has made their conversations more impersonal."​ (you are ​ALLOWED​ and
I ​ENCOURAGE​ you to make up BS evidence like that, the readers LOVE it). I used tons of
these examples all throughout my essay. Be sure to cite appropriate sources (for example, in an
essay topic surrounding digital communication, it would be wise to use “Facebook” as a source).

OR, if you don't like making up evidence:

"I remember trying to explain to my best friend over Snapchat about family problems I had back
at home. However, as I was trying to explain it, I remember my friend telling me that she couldn't
really get what I was saying. It was clear to me that texts just are too informal and are more
suited for less important things. Eventually I ended up telling her everything in person."

So now we just agreed with the perspective. That already gives you a point on the rubric
because it shows the reader that you don't just disagree with everything, but that you can agree
and REFUTE one's perspective too. I do suggest writing a bit more (perhaps 1-2 sentences
max) in support of the given perspective. Now here comes the fun part: we get to refute what
the perspective is saying. This shouldn't be hard. Since we're still on perspective 1, it talks about
how digital communication turns us into self-centered and unsympathetic people. It's clear that
talking to someone over Snapchat instead of face-to-face doesn't make you unsympathetic or
self-centered. So here, you're going to want to write a couple more sentences talking about how
that given part of the perspective is incorrect.

When finished, do the above again for your second body paragraph (which we're disagreeing
with perspective 3).

Finally, our last body paragraph should be the easiest one of them all. Here we're going to
agree with one of the perspectives, again using personal anecdotes or made up evidence. Write
multiple sentences talking about the first part of the perspective (the fact) and how you agree
with that, then write more sentences talking about how you agree with the second part of the
perspective (the opinion) and support it with personal experiences / or bullshit made up studies.

Intro/Conclusion

Now that we've got the body paragraphs out of the way which are typically the hardest part of an
essay, we can focus on the intro/conclusion. I will fully write out an example introduction and
then discuss why it works and how it scores the points necessary to score high.

"We have become a generation of idiots. We spend countless hours every day addicted to our
devices, seeking satisfaction from the sounds of notifications. Of course, with this new
dependency on technology, face to face communication has decreased. Have we become
self-centered, unsympathetic people? Or are most of our personal and societal conflicts a result
of digital communication? This ultimately begs the question: is technology really our friend? By
looking at multiple perspectives, we can find answers to one of society's biggest issues today.
While some argue that digital communication has made us self-centered, unsympathetic people,
the increasing prevalence of digital communication has actually allowed us to communicate
faster and with more people than ever before​."

This introduction works really well because it has a gripping hook that brings the reader in. For
this example, I used a sentence that's pretty extreme: "We're a generation of idiots". That makes
the reader think "wtf is this guy about to go into?" but also makes them intrigued to read on.
Later, I mention exactly the other perspectives in my intro ( "Have we become self-centered,
unsympathetic people? " ). Finally, I mention my theses at the end: ​"While some argue that
digital communication has made us self-centered, unsympathetic people, the increasing
prevalence of digital communication has actually allowed us to communicate faster and with
more people than ever before.".

For ​ALL​ ACT essays, I recommend using this format for your theses:
"​While some argue that​ ​[ part of a perspective you disagree with ]​, ​... has actually​ ​[ part
of a perspective you agree with]​".
This gets the point on the rubric necessary to show that you're able to give your perspective on
the issue and how it relates to at least one of the other perspectives presented in the prompt.

Finally, for your conclusion, restate your thesis and end off with something that leaves the
reader thinking / personal anecdote (do NOT introduce new evidence in your conclusion or any
made up studies).

Final Thoughts

The ACT essay really isn’t that hard. If you follow my given template to organize your essay,
and keep in mind that ​personal anecdotes and made up evidence​ are incredibly effective (even
if you’ve got to lie) you can really score high. Like I said at the start, this template can guarantee
you an 8/12, which is more than enough for all colleges, even top 20s. The difference between
an 8 and even higher scores lies within things like how good of an introduction you can write
(such as how strong your hook is), your use of English language (grammar, vocab), and even
length. Unfortunately, the more you write often means the higher score you’ll get on the essay.
Part of achieving a high score is also luck. You may be familiar with some prompts more than
others. For example, I had to do a debate once about whether schools should have dress
codes, so if I get a writing prompt talking about dress code, I’d already know what to write, what
points to make, etc.. The same applies to you and what you’re already exposed with.

I would like to end by saying this: the ACT essay is not the place to show how good of a writer
you are. I remember hearing a person’s story on Reddit about how she made her essay super
unique (it was really good, actually) but ended up scoring really low. At the end of the day, if you
can’t score the points that are on the reader’s rubric, you’re going to score low, regardless of
how good or unique your essay might be. This only stresses why using templates like these,
which essentially guarantees points, are very important. Leave your creative stuff for your
college admissions essays.

If you have any questions, you can find me on the ACT Discord as “VB”.