Step 2: Plan the Essay (20 minutes)
Resist the urge to start writing right away. All around you, you’ll hear pencils
scratching on paper, and you may think that everyone else is well under way
writing perfectly polished prose. But the trick to writing perfectly polished prose
is to think before you write.
Start by thinking in general terms, and then get more detailed. First, let’s take
two minutes to answer the question: What is the argument?
Krumpf is arguing that video games are bad. Why are they bad? Because
video games require that players find a predetermined solution, rather than
experiment and create their own solutions.
(Now, many of you are probably cooking up quite a few arguments of your
own. Has Krumpf ever played Minecraft? Has he played any open-ended,
massively multiplayer games? Resist this impulse! Your job is to reveal how the
essay persuades—how Krumpf uses evidence to build his argument and how his
writing effectively conveys his points. It’s not your job to point out the flaws of
his argument or to present alternatives.)
In SAT world, everything that is presented in the passage is right and just and magnificent. End of story.
—Samantha
Now that we know the argument, let’s take eight minutes to outline the logic,
and dig out the evidence he cites for each point. At this point, we want to go
back to each paragraph, and summarize the argument. Like so:
- Krumpf evokes a memory of a real-life game that made him think in
productive ways and learn some life lessons. His evidence is this
recollection. Ends it with a question that he will answer in the rest of the
essay.