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Do you have messy handwriting? If so, trust me, you're not alone. Given only 40 minutes to plan and write an essay, most students end up with at least slightly sloppy handwriting. How does bad handwriting affect your ACT Writing score? Can you end up with a lower score? Can you end up with a score of zero? I've got the answers to these questions along with more ACT Writing advice.

You may have heard that extracurriculars are an important part of your high school life. You've probably been bombarded with stories about how everyone who is successful in getting into college played a varsity sport and was student body president and built homes for the poor in Costa Rica.

But do extracurriculars have to be so overwhelming? What are extracurricular activities, exactly? And just how important are they when it comes time to apply to college?

Read on for a better understanding of this important topic.

College in the United States is normally associated with images of dorms, bustling frat parties, and impromptu late-night snack runs. But at a commuter school, most students' experiences are quite different from this. What is a commuter school? What is a commuter student?

Keep reading to learn everything there is to know about commuter schools, including what it's like to attend one, what students think of their commuter schools, the pros and cons of commuting to college, and how you can ensure you have a great college experience should you decide to go to a commuter school.

The Crucible is four acts of tight dialogue and economical action. It can be hard to pick out particular moments or quotes as being key since everything moves along so quickly. Never fear! I have your back with this complete guide to The Crucible quotes.

I'll go over the most important quotes from The Crucible, explaining both their literal meaning and why they're important. For clarity, the quotes are grouped into four themes: irony, fear and hysteria, pride and reputation, and power and authority. Each section also includes additional quotes that fall under the same general theme for you to practice analyzing on your own.

What is the probability that you’ll toss a coin and get heads? What about twice in a row? Three times? Probability questions ask you determine the likelihood that an event or any number of events is to occur, and the more you practice, the better your odds will be at mastering these types of questions on the ACT (see what we did there?).

This will be your complete guide to probability on the ACT—how probability works, the different types of probability questions you’ll see on the test, and the steps you’ll need to take to solve them.

The most common advice out there for being a writer is, "if you want to write, write." While this is true (and good advice), it's not always that easy, particularly if you're not writing regularly.

Whether you're looking for help getting started on your next project, or just want to spend 20 minutes being creative, writing prompts are great ways to rev up your imagination. Read on for our list of over 100 creative writing prompts!

In most books and movies, the "other woman"—the woman having an affair with a married man—is often painted as a villain. But what about in The Great Gatsby, a novel in which both married women (Myrtle Wilson and Daisy Buchanan) are having affairs? Especially given that one (Daisy) ends up killing the other (Myrtle), is Myrtle just a one-note "other woman," or is there more to her?

Myrtle's role in the story isn't as large as Daisy's, Gatsby's, or Tom's. However, she is crucial to the plot of the story, and especially to its tragic conclusion. Find out more about Myrtle's role in Gatsby in this guide!

In The Great Gatsby, in the middle of a strange, gray landscape, hovers a giant billboard of eyes without a face—the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. It's a creepy image, and the fact that several characters seem disturbed by it means that it is very significant in the novel. But did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald didn't make up this advertisement? If you image search "oculist shop sign," you'll see that this disembodied eyes thing was a pretty standard way to advertise places that sold glasses!

So how does The Great Gatsby transform what would have a reasonable everyday image into a sign of the macabre? And why does this billboard affect the characters who see them so much? In this article, I'll talk about the places where the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg are mentioned in the novel, explain their symbolic meaning, connect them with the novel's themes and characters, and also give you some jumping-off points for writing essays.

This makes Nick himself somewhat tricky to observe, since we see the whole novel through his eyes. How can you watch the narrator? This difficulty is compounded by the fact that Nick is an unreliable narrator—basically, a narrator who doesn't always tell us the truth about what's happening.

In this post we will explore what we objectively know about Nick, what he does in the novel, his famous lines, common essay topics/discussion topics about Nick, and finally some FAQs about Mr. Carraway.

Love, desire, and sex are a major motivators for nearly every character in The Great Gatsby. However, none of Gatsby's five major relationships is depicted as healthy or stable.

So what can we make of this? Is Fitzgerald arguing that love itself is unstable, or is it just that experiencing love and desire the way the characters do is problematic?

Gatsby's portrayal of love and desire is complex. So we will explore and analyze each of Gatsby's five major relationships: Daisy/Tom, George/Myrtle, Gatsby/Daisy, Tom/Myrtle, and Jordan/Nick. We will also note how each relationship develops through the story, the power dynamics involved, and what each particular relationship seems to say about Fitzgerald's depiction of love.

We will also include analysis of important quotes for each of the five major couples. Finally, we will go over some common essay questions about love, desire, and relationships to help you with class assignments.

Keep reading for the ultimate guide to love in the time of Gatsby!

When you think about The Great Gatsby's major characters, George Wilson is often the last to come to mind. Compared to his voluptuous wife, Myrtle, Tom, Daisy, Jordan, and, of course, the titular Gatsby himself, pale-faced, shrinking, passive George can almost escape your memory—and perhaps he entirely would if he didn't turn out to be one of the novel's most crucial characters.

George has the least "page time" of the seven major characters, but is important because of the crucial role he plays in the novel's conclusion. Because of this, we don't know quite as much about George's personality, motivations, or characteristics as we do about other characters.

This guide goes over what we do know about George and explains why he is so important. Read on to learn more about the man underneath the ash.

In The Great Gatsby, Chapter 1, the table is set, both figuratively and literally. Figurative table setting includes meeting our narrator, Nick Carraway, and getting a sense of the wealthy Long Island neighborhood where the novel will take place. Literal table setting—well, that’s the dinner Nick has with his cousin Daisy, her husband Tom, and their friend (and Nick’s eventual love interest) Jordan Baker.

Keep reading to learn more about what happens in this chapter, understand how it touches on the novel’s main themes, and see close readings of key quotations!

One of the most arresting images in The Great Gatsby is Nick's vision of Gatsby stretching his arms out towards a small green light on the opposite shore of the bay. The mysterious, almost mystical nature of this gesture is a sure-fire sign that this green light is a symbol.

What is a symbol? It's something that is given extra meaning beyond itself. Something that stops being simply an everyday object, and instead represents thoughts and ideas that are bigger than itself.

What are the abstract ideas behind the green light in The Great Gatsby? Read on to see where this symbol pops up in the novel, what themes it is connected to, which characters are most closely associated with it, and some ideas for essay topics on this symbol.

You know that friend of yours who loves to gossip yet always downplays any drama they get into themselves? Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby is like that friend. A close friend of Daisy Buchanan's, Jordan dates Nick Carraway during the novel and plays a crucial role in reuniting Daisy with the titular Jay Gatsby.

A couple of years younger than Daisy, Jordan is single and a professional golfer, which sets her apart from her married friend. In fact, Jordan is Daisy's opposite in many ways, as we will explore in this guide! Read in for a complete guide to Jordan's appearance, plot points, major quotes, and character analysis!

In The Great Gatsby, money is a huge motivator in the characters' relationships, motivations, and outcomes. Most of the characters reveal themselves to be highly materialistic, their motivations driven by their desire for money and things: Daisy marries and stays with Tom because of the lifestyle he can provide her, Myrtle has her affair with Tom due to the privileged world it grants her access to, and Gatsby even lusts after Daisy as if she is a prize to be won. After all, her voice is "full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it. . . . High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl. . . ." (7.106).

So how exactly does materialism reveal itself as a theme, how can it help us analyze the characters, and what are some common assignments surrounding this theme? We will dig into all things money here in this guide.