cbest essay tips

cbest essay tips

Mastering the CBEST Essay: Strategies and Tips for Success

1. Introduction to the CBEST Essay Section

The LAL score range is 142-200. You need to score at least 123 on your Writing portion. For optimal effectiveness, check your progress by evaluating your responses with practice essay prompts. By doing this, you can avoid common writing process issues and explain your ideas in the best way for a high-scoring essay. In the long run, you will make realistic and achievable writing plans. The real trick to doing well on the Writing section is to be genuinely prepared. Start by finding out what the experience is like so that you will be comfortable with writing essays under CBEST conditions. Then you will need to know what scorers will be looking for in your writing. Understanding what the CBEST test scorers will be looking for when they read your essay gives you the perspective you need to write a high-scoring essay.

The CBEST Writing test consists of two essay questions. One of these assignments will require you to compose an essay based on specific information you will be given about a situation or problem. You must develop an organized response that provides appropriate examples and explanations. The second essay is your chance to describe your position on an issue brought up in the Writing prompt. Again, you should provide a clear and focused writing sample. If you are comfortable with the Writing test, you may find the other sections of the CBEST more manageable. Your performance on the two essays is averaged using Language Arts and Literacy (LAL) scoring.

2. Understanding the Prompt and Requirements

Chapter 2, Understanding the Prompt and Requirements. One of the first things you will need to do is understand the specific requirements of each writing topic. Each writing topic is presented not only as a question but a series of specific directions that explain how you are to organize and develop a response. To be successful in meeting the requirements of the CBEST Writing section, you will need to understand those particular components and elements included in a writing prompt. At first glance, understanding the prompt and the elements and components could seem quite simple. However, as you read through the different requirements for developing a response for a particular issue, it is important to remember the necessity to write within the context of the prompt. Writing an argumentative response to a persuasive topic, for example, could result in a poorly written essay if the issue were different from the requirement. Throughout this book, we will review each of the elements included in a writing prompt from the CBEST and discuss constructing a response that clearly addresses the particular components required. Once those addresses are identified and understood, strategies to review and prepare will be detailed to help you be more successful in writing essays in the allotted amount of time. Before diving into a review of the question, the directions and elements of writing topics, an introduction will provide the essential elements of preparing for the essay.

3. Structuring Your Essay Effectively

The best organization creates meaningful, lucid and logical prose. To communicate ideas at best salaries and job promotion, and to avoid mistakes and unfortunate consequences, it’s essential to form an appropriate, balanced plan that directly connects the central topic/proof to the supporting arguments needed to defend it. Reasonably formal organizational tools can guide this plan of attack. Company reports, letters, and commercial and practical reports for work and school can benefit according to professional book editors at Leaderscenter.org. A poor organization can hinder good writing, whatever the genre. The following section includes guidelines for every step of the writing process, focusing on the critical thesis or project: how to identify it, choose it, strengthen its efforts, and relate it logically to your drafts.

Abstract: Writing a well-structured and balanced essay can significantly improve the overall quality of your work and the grade you receive, whether it be on a standardized test or your college course; whether it’s a term paper, a business report, a critical essay, a novel critique or an evaluation of a practical experiment. An essay that is poorly structured will affect your grade and could hinder the coherence and clarity of your argument. All writers have their own essay-making methods but many of the ideas and techniques presented here are a consensus of professional writers, who have written successfully throughout their lives. Then in my own words, I explain how to apply these formal organizational tools to specific tasks such as essay-making techniques, business reports, college term papers, critical essays, journal entries, and experiment writing in the final section of this book.

4. Incorporating Evidence and Examples

All content aside, when an essay is strong at providing illustrations or evidence, it makes it far easier to read and comprehend. Your arguments become much more relatable and personal to the reader. This has the effect of enabling someone reading your essay to really understand what you are trying to say. He or she can get into your mind when he or she understands all the examples that prove it. By contrast, whenever an essay goes down, it can be hard to figure out just what the writer is trying to argue for. Whenever an essay misses examples, it forces the reader to come up with and consider any possible range of responses and draw their own conclusions because the writer failed to help them out. When grading an essay, I tend not to assume things that should be proven. Although I know about much of what a question is asking, it is not in the grading job description to adhere to advanced theoretical concepts of what is being asked for. I don’t have the time to do so even if I wanted. And it is not as fun when a writer simply forces their reader to do all of the methodological heavy lifting.

I cannot stress this enough: your essay in the CBEST Writing section should include examples, illustrations, or evidence. Basically, these can all be considered as the same thing. No one will tell from your essay that you can do these things or will assume as much. Thus, part of what you are being evaluated on is actually doing these things. They are not optional.

5. Crafting a Strong Conclusion

For instance, if your prompt was, “What is your opinion on enforcing a homework policy at our schools?” you can begin your conclusion by saying, “In conclusion, a homework policy is necessary in our schools. The advantages of such a policy are numerous. First…” You can make your support much more detailed in your conclusion than it was in the introduction, but make sure that you don’t completely abandon your original points. Read over your work and make sure that the final paragraph recaps your opinion and supports. Once you nail down how to create a strong conclusion, you could write 500-word essays in no time, no problem.

It might seem strange to address the conclusion before the body of an essay, but the conclusion is the place to reiterate the main ideas and to restate your opinion, and conclusions can be very easy to write. In your conclusion, remind your reader of the essay prompt, as you will touch upon some of the same points in your conclusion as you did in your introduction. You don’t have to rewrite the entire prompt again, but think about the main point of the essay and write it in a way that echoes back to the prompt.