What’s on the SAT Writing & Language Section: An Overview

In my experience, students either love or hate the Writing & Language section of the SAT. (Okay, ‘love’ might be a bit of a strong word, but you know what I mean.) This section has the benefit of being the most overtly consistent from test to test, and students who have a good ear for proper grammar and punctuation tend to instinctively do pretty well on it. Even if grammar isn’t your thing and the task of placing commas correctly and conjugating verbs to agree with their subjects sounds daunting to you, though, don’t despair! Because this section is so consistent, even students who don’t naturally excel at it will generally see a significant jump in their score through practice—assuming they’re practicing the right things. And the first step to practicing the right things is knowing what to expect, so read on for a full overview of what’s on the SAT Writing & Language section.

What is the structure of SAT Writing & Language?

Writing & Language is always the second section of the SAT, and it is composed of 44 multiple-choice questions; these are distributed among four passages, each with 11 questions. The types of passages you’ll see on the SAT Writing & Language section range from first-person narratives to third-person reports, but they all have one thing in common: they’re badly written. It’s also worth noting that the genre variation among the passages is not as distinctive (or typically as impactful in terms of student performance) as it is on the Reading section. You will find, however, that like on the Reading section, two of the Writing & Language passages will each contain one or more graphs, charts, or tables and ask you 1-2 questions about them.

Probably the single most important thing to note in any overview of what’s on the SAT Writing & Language section is the format in which the questions are presented to you. As you read each passage, you will notice underlined portions of text preceded by a number. Each of these numbers refers to a question, and your goal for the majority of the questions is to decide if you should replace the underlined text, and if so, which answer choice represents the best alternative. Here’s an example:

Though you will see some variation in the question format (some questions don’t contain an underlined portion of text, whereas others don’t have a “no change” option), the general approach still applies: read the passage, stopping to answer questions when prompted.

What types of questions are on the section?

The most obvious distinction between the question types on the Writing & Language section is whether the question… actually asks a question. In my example above, you’ll notice that no question was asked—you were simply presented with a set of answer choices. We like to call these answer questions. If you actually have a question being asked, we call it a question question (super creative names, I know). Here’s what you need to know.

• Answer questions make up roughly 2/3 of the section (7-8 of the 11 questions per passage). These problems are primarily focused on testing the nuts and bolts of grammar mechanics, with a particular emphasis on:
  • Punctuation
  • Subject-verb agreement
  • Transition words
  • Concision and style/tone
  • Word choice
• Question questions make up roughly 1/3 of the section (3-4 of the 11 questions per passage). These problems test rhetoric (effective writing), which mainly includes:
  • Combining sentences
  • Moving a sentence within a paragraph or a paragraph within the passage
  • Adding or deleting sentences
  • Selecting the sentence that most effectively accomplishes a certain goal, e.g. ‘providing an additional example to support the idea introduced in the previous sentence’ or ‘introducing the main idea of the next paragraph’

When summarizing what’s on the SAT Writing & Language section, the College Board will tell you that the section tests things like ‘Expression of Ideas’, ‘Command of Evidence’, and ‘Standard English Conventions’. And while that’s true, those categories are… what’s the phrase I’m looking for… right, borderline useless. Focusing on the specifics of what’s being tested in each question while you’re practicing, as outlined above, will allow you to start spotting the commonalities between questions and the patterns that manifest over the course of the entire section; knowing the test’s tendencies and proclivities is a huge step on the path to mastering it and raising your score.

How do I get better at SAT Writing & Language?

Knowing what’s on SAT Writing & Language is only the first step to beating the section. If you’d like help to get better at SAT Writing & Language, or any other section of the SAT, check out GoTutor’s SAT prep headquarters and let our expert courses help you master the test!