Here's what you'll find in the writing section:

• The SAT^® begins with an essay. You'll be asked to present and support a point of view on a specific issue. Because you have only 25 minutes, your essay is not expected to be polished—it is meant to be a first draft.
• The SAT writing section also includes three types of multiple-choice questions:
  • Improving sentences (25 questions)
  • Identifying sentence errors (18 questions)
  • Improving paragraphs (6 questions)

The multiple-choice sections measure your ability to:

• Communicate ideas clearly and effectively
• Improve a piece of writing through revision and editing
• Recognize and identify sentence-level errors
• Understand grammatical elements and structures and how they relate to each other in a sentence
• Recognize correctly formed grammatical structures
• Clearly express ideas through sentence-combining and use of transitional words and phrases
• Improve coherence of ideas within and among paragraphs