Key Components
of a Successful ACT Essay
If you read the Scoring
Guide carefully, you will see that there
are four key components for a successful
ACT essay. You can use the acronym P-O-E-M to
help you remember the four components:
Position: You
need to choose and defend only one of the
two proposals, providing reasons for your
choice.
Organization: You
need to organize your ideas in a unified,
coherent manner.
Elaboration: You
need to support your position with specific
details and evidence.
Mechanics: You
need to demonstrate competence in basic
English sentence structure, word usage,
and mechanical conventions.
Now let’s see how each of these
four components is rated on the six-point
scale followed by ACT readers:
