Development & Organization | The Complete SAT Course - Class 10 PDF Download

Introduction

The SAT Writing test is divided into two sections: Development and Organization. While the College Board uses technical terms like "proposition" to describe specific question types within these sections, it's more important to understand the overall concepts. Development refers to the main ideas of an essay and how they are presented, while organization is about the details used to support those ideas. Additionally, effective language is a key factor in both sections. Understanding these broad categories will help you prepare for the test without getting caught up in technical jargon.

Development

• On the SAT Writing test, certain question types require you to determine whether a sentence should be added, deleted, or kept based on how it relates to the main idea of the passage or paragraph. Typically, these questions involve evaluating thesis or topic sentences. These types of questions assess your ability to comprehend the fundamental concepts of an essay, which your teachers have likely emphasized as the most crucial aspect of writing. 
• Although the College Board includes the graph question in this category, it is a relatively minor concern. Out of the 44 questions, only one will be a graph question. I recommend doing a few practice graph questions from the College Board book to gain confidence, as this is one of the simpler question types on the Writing test.

Organization

• In an essay, development concerns the central ideas, while organization pertains to the supporting details that bolster these ideas. This is a crucial consideration when composing a standard essay. Simply inserting a claim in the form of a topic sentence without ensuring that the subsequent sentences corroborate the claim is insufficient. The test will present an intriguing format for this type of question, as demonstrated in the accompanying practice passage. Specifically, each sentence in one of the paragraphs will be labeled with a bracketed number indicating its position in the paragraph (this will be clearer upon examining the passage). 
• Your task is to determine the optimal placement for the sentence. This is a common occurrence, and you will eventually associate "organization" questions with those that inquire about the appropriate placement of a sentence. This is perfectly acceptable; you need not be aware of the specific designation of any question type on the test. Your focus should be on understanding how to tackle each question.