Writing and Text-Based Responses
What this domain asks you to do
This domain covers both the essay and short text-based responses: stating a clear claim, organizing ideas logically, developing them with evidence from the provided sources, and explaining how that evidence supports the claim - while controlling conventions.
Concepts to master
- Claim: a debatable, specific position, not a summary of the topic.
- Organization: introduction with a clear thesis, body paragraphs grouped by idea, transitions that show relationships, and a conclusion that explains significance.
- Elaboration: quoted or paraphrased evidence followed by commentary that explains the link to the claim.
- Source use: accurate attribution, no invented facts, and synthesis of more than one source when available.
- Conventions: varied sentence structure, correct agreement, and punctuation that supports clarity.
Traps the test sets
Retelling the source instead of arguing; dropping in a quotation with no explanation; choosing evidence that is interesting but off-claim; summarizing both sides without ever committing to a position; writing a thesis that merely announces the topic; padding with opinion unsupported by the sources.
Rule of thumb and worked example
Use the claim–evidence–commentary chain and never let a quotation end a paragraph. A useful ratio is one to two sentences of commentary for every sentence of evidence.
Example: A weak body paragraph says: The article states that recess improves focus, and another says students behave better. A strong version says: The article reports that classes returning from recess settled faster, which suggests short breaks protect instructional time rather than consume it. This directly supports the claim that recess should be scheduled before demanding lessons. The second version names the link instead of trusting the reader to find it.