The SAT describes the passages in Improving Paragraphs questions as rough drafts of essays. Each passage usually contains three paragraphs of about five sentences each. So all together you’re dealing with about 15 sentences per Improving Paragraphs passage.

The SAT’s description of the passages as “first drafts” means that the passages contain simple sentence construction and a straightforward writing style. It also means that the essays are filled with errors of style, clarity, wordiness, and poor organization. It’s your job to find and fix those errors. Our section on the SAT Essay tells you just what you need to know to write great SAT paragraphs and to avoid the errors you’ll have to fix in Improving Paragraphs questions (see page ).