<p>So I don't know if they had different essay prompts but I had one asking whether or not high school sports had a positive influence on students (who participate in them).</p>
<p>Here's what I had to say:</p>
<p>P1: Intro: they do have a positive influence
P2: Competition: Brings out competitive nature in students. I brought up an example of a short weak and slow wide receiver who worked really hard at our school and got the starting WR job. Then he applied his competitve nature, brought out by the coach, into his school work and got into Stanford. Colleges like competitive students</p>
<p>P3: Cooperative: Student-athletes learn teamwork. I said my cousin plays basketball at Loyola HS and he's better then most of his teammates but he learned to play unselfish with the rest of the team and so now they are good. Then I said he made friends with this attitude and participated more in the classroom</p>
<p>P4: Counter argument: People who say HS sports are bad because they take from your academic success are wrong. Sports are a medium for students to express their free time, which would still be present even if they didn't play sports (i.e. video games, kicking it with friends). Additionally, many HS districts require a 2.0 GPA for students to participate in sports. I said some student who has bad grades may have a certain passion for a sport and thus he will work harder in school to get a 2.0.</p>
<p>P5: Conclusion.. just gave it a finished feel</p>
<p>i'm too tired to post what i wrote, but i used big vocab words (proclivity, fallacious, ineffable, that sounded great and had a great sentence variety. i'm a sportsaholic so this was very easy for me to point out all the benefits and use a quote from a national math teacher of the year and talk about politicians praising sports. i also addressed the counter argument presented and even other counter arguments. however, i only wrote 1.5 pages and rushed a 2 sentence completion. that may take me down to a 10, but overall this essay was better than most of my SAT essays and looked really good. what an easy topic, esp. for a long distance runner!</p>
<p>one of my good points was that sports promote physical fitness, and studies show that physical activity in turn promotes clearer thinking, so it would in fact help out students in the classroom. plus, sports help w/ the whole self-esteem issue and self achievement, cooperation, and the such. also, it teaches people about time management. just a few things like that. i don't think i did as well as i did on the april one (scored 11). i still wonder if i could ever track down the man/woman who gave me a 5 instead of a 6...just kidding. :P</p>
<p>I did something weird with my essay. My thesis was that students should keep a healthy balance of school and academics. I said that one does not outweigh the other b/c athletics can develop students morally (keeping them out of the bad things in the community) and socially. On the other hand too much sports brings out bad grades... So in conclusion, the best student is the well rounded student. It was a bunch of fluff and cliches. I don't think I did as well as my 12, then again I thought my essay back then was horrid also.</p>