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<p>Thanks in advance, guys.</p>
<p>Im not reading them because your “Y’s” are making me angry.</p>
<p>Thanks for nothing ^.</p>
<p>I didn’t read your essay entirely, but at first glance, what I noticed (besides your y’s) is that your essay is… Legos. There’s five blocky paragraphs. Sure, they’re solid paragraphs, but there’s zero transition between the two to smooth the gap.</p>
<p>Should I work on transitioning, then? What, ultimately, cost me a 6/6-12?</p>
<p>I am really not an Essay advisor…in fact I came here to see how to improve myself, but i have a question…Why do you stretch your Y’s lol?</p>
<p>I don’t know…I just do. haha</p>
<p>I wouldn’t focus on the transitioning necessarily, just keep it in the back of your mind. Sorry I’m not any sort of experienced essay grader/adviser. Have you seen Academic Hacker’s thread about getting a 12? I don’t have the link on hand, but a bit of skimming around this particular section of the forums ought to get you there. Personally, I think it’s a godsend and will help to improve everyone’s essays immeasurably.</p>
<p>^ Thanks. His advice helps a LOT. I should definitely score a 12 next time ;).</p>
<p>I began this before the above post at 8:17, so my page was not refreshed, sorry if I repeat some of the things mentioned in the other source… </p>
<p>When I read your essay:
First: stay away from “a lot”. </p>
<p>I will now continue reading your essay.
Hmmm… don’t include the scorer in your essay (“what we learn from this…”) If you want to make it a personal essay, stick solely with yourself. But don’t use “I think” or “I believe” or “In my opinion”… you can eliminate these words and your essay still makes sense. By eliminating this, you make the essay strong, because you are presenting DETAILS to support your ARGUMENT as opposed to presenting OPINION to support your OPINION. </p>
<p>Continuing…
A colon denotes a list, you gave one example (it seems picky, but it’s a grammatical error)…
Don’t use a current democratic president as an example. Most of the graders will be upwards of 40 in age, middle to upper-middle class, if not upper class, with retirement and health benefits from their job. Safe to say many will be republican. I’m not saying this is what happened, but a republican seeing you call Barrack Obama one of our “great leaders” subliminally lowers their desire to read more of your essay. </p>
<p>Anyways, back to the essay…
Work on making your writing more legible. I understand everyone’s been bagging on your writing, but you must keep in mind that the scorers have to read literally THOUSANDS of these essays, and they will NOT reread in most cases; your score is entirely based on that first read-through. If it is illegible, the scorer does not want to give you a good score. Make it easy for them, write a tad bit larger, and they’ll be more inclined to give you a good score as opposed to those others who wrote tiny and scrunched together.</p>
<p>Continuing…
Keep your tenses the same. In your fourth paragraph, you began to use a conditional tense (It’s worth the investment and can take you…) but ended using the wrong tense (…places you never imagine; which should have read “…places you could never imagine”) Grammatical and spelling errors stick out in the scorers’ minds, so work on the grammar…</p>
<p>Continuing…
I’m sorry to say this, but your concluding paragraph is terribly weak. First, you had been writing the entire rest of the essay using the first person, but then switched to the second person. KEEP YOUR PERSPECTIVE CONSISTENT THROUGH THE WHOLE ESSAY! (When I write my essays, I tend to keep it third person.) When you are talking about “we all”, you made one example singular (grammatical). When I finished your last paragraph, I felt your conclusions were not based on your support paragraphs. The conclusion should be a short summary of what you have said, at most 3-4 sentences (someone once told me the structure of a good essay: tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them what you want to tell them, then tell them what you told them).
Overall, and I’m not saying this to be mean or anyting, but I’m a little surprised you got a 10 on the essay, NO OFFENSE MEANT! A 8 or 9 possibly, but definitely not lower than an 8, you did support at least marginally well.</p>
<p>Okay, time for MY advice.
First, in regards to examples:
It seemed that you tried to use real-life examples. This is great, but these examples tend to be weak and not wholely thought out. Instead, I advise one of 2 strategies: 1. MAKE THEM UP! That’s right, make fictional, completely bs’ed examples. The scorers have to read thousands of these essays, they’re not going to fact check everythig that seems like it MIGHT be a farce. Tailor your examples to support the prompt and your view of the prompt. 2.Become an expert on 2 or three subjects that will cover a large range of topics (think PERSIA–political, educational, religious, self-realization, intellectual, artistic). These can be used for basically any essay, it just depends what sort of spin you put on it.
Second, in regards to introductory and concluding paragraphs:
Keep your opinions to yourself. Use strong, assertive language which makes you APPEAR to be an expert on the subject. Avoid common words, such as like, a lot, many, sort of, kind of, things, stuff, etc. Vocabulary is important, but not to the point where it is so verbose the scorer has no idea wht you are talking about.
Third, in regards to general structure:
Vary your sentence lengths. Short, choppy sentences put your essay in a negative light. Instead, use some compound sentences, some lists, and a few quick hitters.
The 5-paragraph format is the most taught, the most common, and the safest format you can use. The majority of the essays you write in your high school career will be 5-paragraphers (I’m talking essays here, not papers)… but on the SAT, you’re not required to do this. Vary your paragraph lengths. Use 4 paragraphs. Use 6. But don’t use less than 4 or more than 6.
You want your examples to be well thought out and detailed. Merely mentioning someone and what they did in a short sentence and a half is not enough. Give a good 2 and a half to 3 sentence description of your example. Scorers are looking to see that you can support your opinion with solid, concrete examples, not simply keep repeating your opinion.
There is not always a lesson to be learned! Albeit there are sometimes, but mostly, scorers are looking to see that you can write on topic, support your opinion, develop paragraph structure, use decent vocabulary, and that you know grammar and spelling.</p>
<p>Here’s an essay I wrote late last year that scored an 11:</p>
<p>It is always important to strive for the betterment of one’s self. Significant advances in technology, athletics, and medicine have been made because individuals were not content to live merely with what they had.
Technology is always advancing. Since the discovery of man, man has not found himself without the continual urge to better himself. Throughout the ages, individuals such as Thomas Edison, found it necessary to strive to better themselves. In this case, Edison would not simply accept the candle and forego any experiments to create the lightbulb; instead, he failed nearly a thousand times before he created a workable bulb. Indeed, the urge to better his situation pushed Edison to the invention of a product that is nowadays not uncommon.
In 2001, when then Lumberjack Championships contender Raphael Goodsman failed to make the final cut of the Championships, he found it necessary to better himself to get to the Championships in 2002. Through hard work, determination, and rugged perseverance, Goodsman found himself, in 2002, achieving what he had never done before: competing against the world’s very best lumberjacks in the Lumberjack Championships. However, Goodsman was not content to let another take home the gold. He felt it necessary to strive for betterment during the week prior to the Championships, honing his Hotsaw technique and training harder than he had all year. It was through this betterment of himself that in 2002, Rafael Goodsman found himself in possession of the highly coveted Golden Axe, marking his peak as a lumberjack.
A final matter to touch upon lies in the world of mediine. In 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt was struck with a case of polio which eventually led to his death. After this occurred, scientists were not content to let thousands of others fall to the fate of the former president. Instead, scientists strove to better society by developing the polio vaccination. By doing this, scientists helped save thousands of people by not sitting idly with what was then “good enough”.
It cannot be said enough times- the betterment of oneself not only improves the one, it improves all. With advances in technology and medicine, society has been made better. By striving to better themselves in sports, athletes provide higher levels of entertainment for fans. After all, if not for the betterment of ourselves and society, wouldn’t we all still be living in cold, damp caves?</p>
<p>I hope this helped at least a little and good luck in the future!</p>
<p>Fix those y’s and don’t skip a space between your paragraphs and if you fill up both pages I guarantee you a 12.</p>
<p>^ filling up pages does not necessarily guarantee a 12. You have to keep the topic germaine and not make too many speling/grammatical errors is all.</p>
<p>Ghost, you’ve helped me tremendously.</p>
<p>haha, no problem. BTW, I made up Raphael Goodsman, FDR’s death, well, most of the 2 support paragraphs.
Additional thought: I like to end my essays with a witty statement, sometimes a question that leaves the scorer with a good taste in their mouth. It’s not necessary, and sometimes not applicable, but if you can, that last impression may be that 1 point difference.</p>
<p>Ghost, the best way to score a 12 is to fill up both pages in their entirety. Quantity over quality, at least when it comes to SAT essays…</p>
<p>^still not necessarily true… I can write MUCH bigger than someone else and fill up both pages and have a lower score than someone with smaller writing but better demonstated writing skills.</p>
<p>What if your a fast thinker and writer, and, thus, can write 4-5 examples (total 6-7 paragraphs) filling up all 4 pages. If those examples stay on topic, do you reckon your chances of a 12 increased?</p>
<p>From what I’ve gathered, you want to fill up both pages as much as you can. On the other side of the token, I agree with ghost in the sense that you may not score a 12 if you just fill up the page.</p>
