<p>Question: Do you agree that persistence is a major factor in success? And that talent genius and education play, at best, secondary roles?</p>
<p>Beijing has had the honor to be the first city in china to ever hold the summer Olympics. The Olympics has known to bring out the best in all athletes. As the Olympics presents these athletes with the opportunity to mark their names in history, their output in turn is a culmination of their practice, discipline and above all, their persistent determination. I strongly believe that persistence is the key to success and this can be seen through the achievements of swimmer Michael Phelps and beach volleyball duo Misty May and Karri Walsh at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.</p>
<p>Michael Phelps began swimming as a child at the age of seven. His persistence and practice helped him perfect his skill as he grew into an Olympian swimmer. At Athens in 2004, Phelps got his first taste of what it was like to be an Olympian. With his schedule jam packed with eight events,, he was determined to sweep them all in gold but came short with six gold, one silver and one bronze. Four years later, Phelps persisted and challenged himself with the same schedule he had gone though with in Athens. This time, his persistence paid off and with eight gold medals in a single Olympics, he is hailed as the greatest Olympian of all time. Persistence over came his talent and skill to have the biggest hand in granting him his victories.</p>
<p>Unlike Phelps, Kerri Walsh and Misty May started their Olympic careers with a well earned gold medal in Athens. But things went downhill from there. Slowly disintegrating and losing their form, they were no longer as recognized in the competitive realm. Undeterred, they persisted onwards with confidence. From August 19.2007 through the Olympic gold medal final a year later, the duo went undefeated straight through all 107 consecutive matches. Their persistence landed them two consecutive Olympic gold medals in beach volleyball, a first in the history of the sport.</p>
<p>The athletes overcame their difficulties not with skill alone, but also with their persistence. In the end, they savored victory with the appreciation that during all the moments when they should have given up, they chose not to.</p>
<p>I really like this essay. The Olympics is a timely subject and your two examples show two different ways that persistence can bring success. I especially like the volleyball story, because it is hard to explain their performance between 2004 and 2008 without assigning most of the responsibility to persistence.</p>
<p>Your whole essay is about the olympics! while i share your interest in the olympics, the essay grader may not. In fact, RR says to stay away from current events as your example (in this case, examples) If the essay grader had a bias toward the olympics, as many do, you'd be on the fast train to a retake.</p>
<p>you don't want them to bring an emotional aspect into grading your essay. ideally, they should grade your essay purely based on your merits, but if you use current events, according to RR, you run the risk of bringing a factor of emotion into essay grading, which can sometimes be bad.</p>
<p>I can understand how bringing current events into things can produce an emotional reaction. After all, I may feel especially strongly about things that are happening right now than about things that happened in the past, and because I think of myself as a reasoned person I probably think that arguments in support of a conclusion I agree with are better than arguments in support of a conclusion I disagree with. I'd like to think that as a grader I wouldn't let my personal feelings about the conclusion get in the way, and I have given As to term papers that presented good arguments (though not, I think, conclusive arguments) for conclusions I thought morally reprehensible, and I know plenty of graders who have done the same. But I do think that in general test-takers tend to overestimate the extent to which personal feelings influence grades and that in general graders tend to underestimate it, and that means that at least some of us who honestly believe we are fair in grading are mistaken.</p>
<p>It took me a few minutes to think of a way that the Olympics could raise this concern. But suppose I thought that the American beach volleyball team won because (a) a referee with a pro-American bias made some bad calls that really helped them out, and (b) the American athletes got all kinds of support in training that only a rich country can provide and that everyone would have agreed were unfair if it had been Canada providing them, but that they were accepted because America has such influence in the world. Suppose that I thought this was not only true, but stunningly obvious. I might think that someone who attributed the American win to individual characteristics such as talent and persistence was ridiculously oblivious. I might think that an argument that didn't take account of something as obvious as pro-American discrimination in beach volleyball was very weak, just as I might think that an argument that attributed Phelps' victory to his training in Speedos that were a lucky color and failed to even consider reasons that I think are much more plausible was very weak. Over time, I might be expected to "cool down" a little and become more fair. But this close to what I saw as an injustice I might have a harder time being objective.</p>
<p>So I guess I can see why RR would say that. And I can definitely get that on a test as important as the SAT you would want to err on the side of expecting graders to be more biased than they are. As I've said, I do think that some are, and if they only have 2 people grading each essay it will matter a great deal if one of them is unfair.</p>
<p>^ i agree, the essay is well written. It's just that when i read about Miachael Phelps i thought that a lot of people might think he's overrated and all that or think that the Beijing Olympics was a mistake, yata yata yata... but yeah, nice essay. :)</p>
<p>Bigb14 is extremely wrong. Historical examples, which many people use, are worse than current events in the area of "some readers might not like the example". Use current events, as they are good examples.</p>