hi edith 🙂

you’ve asked an interesting question that has a complicated answer 🙂 this is because on the new sat, you will receive three individual essay scores ranging from 2-8. you’ll have two graders that give you a score 1-4 on three separate sections: reading, writing, and analysis. the three scores are not added up on your score report but rather reported separately for these categories. according to college board, the writers of the sat, the scores are not added up to better show strengths and weaknesses in these three areas. the reading score reflects your understanding of the passage. the analysis score reflects how well you’ve analyzed the passage and explained the author’s argument. lastly, your writing score is a reflection of the writing quality or how well you’ve crafted your essay.

with this in mind, it’s better to think about the three individual scores and not the sum of these scores. according to the official rubrics, a score of 2 (out of 4) is considered “partial” and indicates limited competence in the area, while a score of 3 (out of 4) is considered “proficient”. so, you’ll want to be scoring 3’s and 4’s (6-8 combined) on each section. a “combined” score of 19 if you were to score 6, 6, 7 would be considered good. however, if you were to score 3, 8, 8, which is also 19, this would indicate that one part of your essay had major weakness.

for this reason, i’d recommend always thinking of your essay score as three separate scores rather than the sum of these scores 🙂

i hope this helps!