SSAT Essay: A Chance to Write

While studying for the SSAT, I have had the opportunity to write a couple essays using the prompts that they give me. This is undoubtedly my favorite part of the SSAT, because you can get creative and it pushes you to think fast and come up with meaningful examples. There is not a whole lot of time, but enough to get something good down on paper. The prompts can be a little wacky, and so can my responses, but generally they are good. This is just a rough draft, as I had a short time and have not edited it yet.

Here is my essay, written in twenty five minutes. It is a response to the prompt "Imagination is more important than knowledge."


Anyone can succeed. You don't need years of schooling or intensive learning to excel. Imagination is the most important tool to have, and with that at your fingertips, you can do anything. Examples of creativity outstripping knowledge include painters, poets, and writers such as William Shakespeare.

 The first example of imaginative thinking poetry. Poets do not need vast amounts of learning to create beautiful images and scenes. All they need is a passion for writing and a great imagination. A poet full of imagination and heart will always beat one who has had years of training but produces bland and uninspired poems. Poets like Emily Dickinson did not attend a school for poetry or a university of words. They simply imagined their own world and created stunning poems from their thoughts and emotions.

Another example of a great imagination is the Bard himself: William Shakespeare. As a young man, Will's family did not have the money to send him to university. When Will became a playwright, many other writers had attended university and considered themselves better than him. Will blew them all away with his plays, even though he had less schooling than them. He used his spectacular imagination to create plays better than those stuffed with knowledge.

The last example of imagination versus knowledge is an artist. Artists rely on imagination to create media that will capture the hearts of audiences, and no amount of knowledge can teach a painter how to create magical pictures. You can study hard and become a technically perfect potter, but your bowls and vases will not be fully appreciated unless you create them with the spark of imagination.

No matter what profession you may have, you will always value imagination over technical ability and knowledge. Whatever you choose to do, the amount of imagination you put into it will be the key. It is imagination which makes good thinks into great, and it is creativity which makes the world magical.