Written by: Jace Vail
At UCF, Ad/PR is not an open major; rather, it is restricted and bound by certain requirements before entry. These include taking introductory courses in advertising and public relations, having 30 credit hours, maintaining a good GPA, and finally, achieving a certain score on the Writeplacer exam. For context, the Writeplacer is an AI-scored writing exam given by the CollegeBoard (yes, those familiar faces behind the AP exams and SAT, again!) to determine your writing skill. What is a good score, you may ask? Well, that depends on your competition. Each year is different, as the difficulty of admission for that semester rests on the alignment of the scores of the applicants. It’s scored from one to eight, and your best chance for admission is to get at least a six, but to hope for a seven. It is important to note that you do not need to be an expert writer to do well on the WritePlacer. (Spoiler: I am not.) Before practicing for this exam, I had not written a single essay in over a year. While I may still not be an expert, using the tips I am about to share, I received a seven on the exam and was admitted to the program on my first attempt.
In the exam, you will be given a randomly selected prompt, and you’ll have 60 minutes to argue for whichever side you can support with stronger evidence and reasoning. The first objective you should tackle before your first essay is learning the structure. Since the grade is determined by AI, there is a format that you should follow to optimize your score. After some extensive research (aka a quick Google search), I devised a format that served me well. In the introduction, about four sentences, create a generalization about your topic, quotation, anecdote, or other topic. Your main objectives are to introduce the topic and overtly state your stance on the argument. In your next three paragraphs, with about five sentences each, frame three different examples, preferably from various viewpoints, to defend your assertion from all angles. One of these paragraphs preferably includes citing the quotation paragraph, listed near the prompt, to help strengthen your claim. Undoubtedly, this is the hardest part of the exam.
My biggest tip is to not take the essay too seriously. Most of my examples were from movies or TV shows I watched, or even various TikTok trends. These were not only easier to devise, but elaborating on these felt authentic and kept my essay from becoming too dry. With this being said, verify that these examples are directly linked to your prompt, without going too far off course. Finally, the conclusion, including about three sentences encompassing the pivotal end of your essay. Surprisingly, herein lies the rebuttal. After introducing my opposing viewpoint, I rebuke it and wrap up, reiterating my thesis.
Now that you have that squared away, it’s time to move on to some more strategic insights before entering this exam. Conciseness! Rambling will inevitably hurt the clarity and overall strength of your essay. If you can effectively express your thoughts in fewer words, then do it. I tried to aim for 500 words in each essay I completed, never going above 600. Next, due to biases, it is difficult to provide feedback on your essay. Politely strong-arm your friends or family to review your essays and give honest and constructive criticism. Near the end, I asked ChatGPT to grade my essays based on the rubric of the Writeplacer compared to example essays. This gave me accurate and expeditious feedback on my writing. As a final point, while this may seem stereotypical to say, practice makes perfect. I wrote roughly 10 essays before the final test. I’d grab an AI-generated prompt, set an hour timer, and pretend I was fighting for my life in the actual exam. Doing so greatly reduced my nerves in approaching the exam date.
If you’ve followed these steps and practiced a couple of essays, you’ve got this! Remember to relax. Go into the essay with a clear mind and leave plenty of time to check for any errors within your essay. Below this post, I have linked the official CollegeBoard Writeplacer resource that you can use to help prepare for the exam. Good luck!
The Link: WritePlacer®
Quotes 