ACT Essay Criticism?

Test Preparation
1

<p>Hi, below is my response to a prompt from the Real Act Prep Book. I am looking for any critiques anyone can give. I handwrote it originally in the 30 minutes given and then typed it up after that (It came to about two and half pages when written on normal lined paper). Thanks for any help/criticism you can give. </p>

<p>Prompt:
In some states, legislators have debated whether teenagers should be required to maintain a “C” grade point average in school before receiving a driver’s licensee. Some people think this would be a good policy because having passing grades shows that students are responsible enough to be good drivers. Other people think such a policy would not be appropriate because they see no relationship between grades in school and driving skills. In your opinion, should teenagers be required to maintain a “C” average in school before receiving a driver’s license? </p>

<p>My Response:
Every student longs for the day when they can ditch riding in their mom’s mini-van or their schools ugly yellow bus for a cool ride of their own; however, some believe that these students dreams should be deferred if they do not maintain a “C” grade point average. Although these proponents are looking to increase driver safety, I do not believe enforcing a GPA cut off will help them achieve their desired results.
The immediate issues that comes about with the GPA cut off plan, is how can we act as if all “C” GPAs are the same. In this proposal, students who attend competitive high schools, take AP courses, or take college-level courses will be hurt, well students who take easier course loads will be rewarded. From a personal perspective, if this bill was enacted I would no longer look to push myself into AP and college level courses if it meant my driver’s license was on the line, and I am sure other high achieving students would do the same.
Even if proponents of this bill somehow found a way to fairly quantify students grades, they would have to ask themselves, do grades really show a correlation to driving talent? Since the proponents have provided no studies on this information, basic logic tells me no. A students GPA is based more off memorization while driving depends more on one’s hand-eye coordination.
Now, proponents of this bill may argue that a students responsibility - as measured by their GPA - will effect the speed and level of caution they drive with. This may be a reasonable assumption, but I believe we are comparing apples to oranges. Does a student’s grade on a calculus or physics exam really determine how safely they will drive while out on the road? Until, studies can prove me wrong, I do not believe a correlation exists.
So, in conclusion, the proponents of this bill lack a convincing argument as GPAs are to hard to quantify fairly and simply do not relate to a young driver’s performance on the road. So, to all the young drivers who feared having to leave their own ride and return to the mini-van or bus, I say, fear not.</p>

2

<p>Looks good to me for an essay actually written in a 30 minute time frame. You answered the question, gave supporting arguments, your line of reasoning was easy to follow, and your grammar, etc, were generally correct. I’d say good job.</p>

3

<p>You have oodles of grammar issues throughout this prompt. I’m more of an expert on SAT writing, not so much the ACT (since I’m less familiar with it) but I know they’re just as asinine about the spelling/grammar/mechanics as the SAT graders are. So, I can tell you the mistakes for future reference:</p>

<p>Your first sentence is a weak attention-getter, with a bunch of grammatical errors:</p>

<p>“Every student longs for the day when they can ditch riding in their mom’s mini-van or their schools ugly yellow bus for a cool ride of their own; however, some believe that these students dreams should be deferred if they do not maintain a “C” grade point average.”</p>

<p>“Every student” is not a pluralized noun; hence, you have to say “when he or she can blablabla” not they. And it would be “his or her mom’s mini-van or school’s ugly, yellow bus.” First of all, you don’t need to repeat “their,” as you’ve said it once already. Ugly and Yellow are two adjectives that need to be separated by a comma. Schools should be possessive since it is possessing the ugly, yellow bus. So a correct version of this sentence would be:
“Every student longs for the day when he or she can ditch riding in his or her mom’s mini-van or school’s ugly, yellow bus for a cool ride of their own;…” Also note that you don’t need to say his or her or he or she; you can just pick one or the other. For the second part of the sentence, “;however, some believe that these students dreams should be deferred if they do not maintain a “C” grade point average.” It would be students’ (posessive). Otherwise, it’s fine, (in that you’re trying to make a thesis, however awkwardly) but the introduction sentence is way too wordy and you use colloquial terms a little bit too much.</p>

<p>In the second sentence, “Although these proponents are looking to increase driver safety, I do not believe enforcing a GPA cut off will help them achieve their desired results.” The pronoun “them” after will help is vague; you need to clarify who you are referring to.</p>

<p>In the third sentence you wrote: “The immediate issues that comes about with the GPA cut off plan, is how can we act as if all “C” GPAs are the same.”</p>

<p>It would be “the immediate issues that come about with the GPA cut off plan are how we can act as if all blablabla” You don’t need a comma after plan and the second part of the sentence is poorly worded.</p>

<p>The fact that I’m only on your third sentence, and I’ve written this much so far, means that you really need to go over your basic grammar rules. I’m not going to finish reading through this, but I estimate you’d receive a total score of maybe 4-6/12.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

4

<p>Blame the “competitive high schools” and their English courses. Even cursory lessons about English grammar can dramatically alter one’s ACT/SAT scores.</p>

5

<p>OK, but this was written in 30 minutes. I would say if a student was given a prompt they had never seen before and had 30 minutes to write a response, this is a pretty good essay. I could edit the grammar and make it sound much smoother easily and I expect the OP could as well - if he/she had all the time in the world. But the exam gives the kids 30 minutes, so what is being judged is a first draft and is (hopefully) graded as such. I would expect it would receive more like a 9 out of 12.</p>

6

<p>You’re supposed to have two sides of the argument for the ACT essay, so he would receive a max of 6/12 since he failed to do so. When you write these essays they expect you to have the grammar intact. Don’t play that by the readers. Have fun writing your essay if you think like that.</p>

7

<p>Carin,</p>

<p>Thanks a lot for the critique. A lot of the errors came from sloppy typing, as I was posting this topic right before I had to go to school. Still, quite a few of the errors were there in my original essay.(mainly, the pluralized noun errors). That was the first writing prompt I ever responded to, and it was a very interesting challenge. I usually score very high on the English section of practice ACT tests and do well on papers, but when trying to write a persuasive essay so quickly for the first time, it was very stressful. I am planning to take the Oct. test, and I am now planning to respond to prompts ever other day in preparation for the rest. I will try to establish good habits by allowing myself more time in the beginning and then slowly wind myself down as the test date comes closer. If other students are currently struggling with the writing section, maybe this approach could help them as well. </p>

<p>Also, Carin, I do not mean this in an argumentative way, but could you provide me of an intro that you feel is stronger then mine?</p>

8

<p>Also Carin,</p>

<p>I am not sure if you ever read the rest of my essay, but I thought that this paragraph argued against a counter-argument. Maybe it wasn’t strong enough though.</p>

<p>“Now, proponents of this bill may argue that a students responsibility - as measured by their GPA - will effect the speed and level of caution they drive with. This may be a reasonable assumption, but I believe we are comparing apples to oranges. Does a student’s grade on a calculus or physics exam really determine how safely they will drive while out on the road? Until, studies can prove me wrong, I do not believe a correlation exists.”</p>

9

<p>I always thought that you had to explain the other side as well as explain why it was wrong, but I’m not as familiar with ACT writing as the SAT, so I might be wrong.</p>

<p>I normally do a strong intro like so:</p>

<p>Attention getting sentence, medium length.
Further explanation or development of attention getter if needed.
Stating of points you will use (the backbones of your body paragraphs_
Explanation of each individual point
Transition into first point</p>

<p>Example of an attention getter… (assume the prompt is about, let’s say… CENSORSHIP).</p>

<p>Imagine living in a world without freedom, where everything is mysteriously controlled by a hidden agenda. Scary, isn’t it?</p>

<p>That wasn’t the best example, but it’s what I came up with on the spot… just to give you an idea.</p>

10

<p>“Have fun writing your essay if you think like that.”</p>

<p>Carin - FYI, back in the day I got a 720 with no prep on the SAT-V, a 5 on the AP English exam, and was the recipient of a cash award for writing at my LAC. I received my BA Magna Cum Laude. </p>

<p>You can act as superior as you like. No one expects a 17 year old to write like a professional in 30 minutes with no prior exposure to the essay prompt. My commentary on this essay would be very different if it were in response to a prompt on a college application, but this is the essay for the ACT, where there is a 30 minute time limit. Would that essay get a writer into Harvard? Probably not. Would it get him/her into 90% of the colleges/universities in the country? Well, it wouldn’t be a reason for rejection.</p>

<p>Carin:“You’re supposed to have two sides of the argument for the ACT essay, so he would receive a max of 6/12 since he failed to do so.” Oh really?</p>

<p>From the ACT website, Test Prep section:
"Prompts used for the ACT Writing Test:

  • describe an issue relevant to high school students
  • ask examinees to write about their perspective on the issue
    As a starting place, two different perspectives on the issue will be provided. Examinees may choose to support one of these perspectives or to develop a response based on their own perspective."</p>

<p>I don’t see anywhere that they require the student to “explain the other side as well as why it was wrong.” It says that two different perspectives WILL BE PROVIDED - meaning the ACT will provided 2 perspectives in their prompt. Students are asked to chose to support ONE of these or to write about THEIR PERSPECTIVE on the issue. From MY perspective, this student did that. I stand by my 9/12.</p>

11

<p>First of all, when I said have fun writing YOUR essay, I was referring to YOU as if you were a high school student doing these standardized tests. First of all, the OP had countless pluralization, comma, and other extremely basic grammatical errors. The ACT and the SAT Writing BOTH test you multiple times on these simple examples. How many times have you seen a question like this:</p>

<p>Some famous authors never wanted to become a writer,</p>

<p>while others dreamed of the profession as young children.</p>

<p>They expect you TO KNOW something like this, something you learn in 9th-10th grade. Why else would they test you on this? And why on earth would they then tolerate you to write in that format on an essay in which they specifically state to get a perfect score you should have an essay free of grammatical/mechanical errors. For a 5, there is tolerance for maybe just a small couple. In this student’s passage, he had more than just a couple, which would drag his score down to the realms of a 2-3, 4 at the highest. So I know they don’t expect students to write like professionals, but please. I’m sure you are a fantastic writer, but since when is using basic grammar (commas, plural nouns, possessive nouns, punctuation, etc.) called professional? If they test this on the test itself and expect you to be able to recognize this in writing, why wouldn’t they want to see that capability portrayed in an essay? It’s not that hard to know when to use a comma, especially when this isn’t a senior thesis.</p>

12

<p>“but I estimate you’d receive a total score of maybe 4-6/12.”</p>

<p>Sorry, this statement makes it seem as if you have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you serious? A 4-6? A 4-6 would mean he’s in the freaking bottom 6th-33rd%…This essay would have easily scored an 8, most likely even a 9. Compared to the trash essays I wrote for the ACT (I suck at writing), this is much better. I scored an 8 on both of my essays so this essay would obviously receive at least an 8.</p>

13

<p>I might have exaggerated, as my familiarity with the ACT is less than other tests.</p>