<p>Its not a college admission essay or anything. Just an essay for practice for the SATs.
If you have any recommendations then please share. THANKS!!!</p>
<p>Topic:"People who like to think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic tend to take it for granted that human nature and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this view, the basic law by which people behave is the law of the jungle. The 'fittest' are those people who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness."</p>
<p>Question:"Do people have to be highly competitive in order to succeed?"</p>
<p>Essay:
[new paragraph] Survival of the fittest. This statement is world renowned due to its multiple uses. Animals use this maxim to avoid getting eaten. Darwin used it as a basis for his theory of Evolution. Even last week, my gym teacher told my class this statement in hope that we would be able to climb the twenty foot rope. This statement drives the fact that in order to survive, we, as humans, have to be highly competitive with each other. This is especially true in times of war and bloodshed. Rivaling entities have to draw on their competitive nature to come out victorious in war.
[new paragraph] The American Revolution reflects the Americans nature to survive very clearly. The new born nation of the United States, knew that it would not be able to outlast the British during the war. Therefore, they sought out the alliances of the many enemies of England to attempt to gain some sort of an advantage. After the battle of Saratoga, America and France formed a truce and France sent in its own soldiers and a lot of money into battle. Due to Frances ties with the Spanish and the Dutch, Spain and the Netherlands both sent their own soldiers and money to aid the Americans. With this sort of revival in the morale and mass of the American army, they were able to dominate the few remaining battles and ended up trapping the British army at Yorktown, leading Britain to forfeit its land. This shows that America was even willing to team up with a former enemy in hopes to lead the British out of the United States.
[new paragraph] Another war that greatly reflects the Americans competitive nature was World War II. The war itself forced the combatants to be creative and come up with new and more efficient weaponry, tactics, and overall soldiers. This led many to continue with the trench and chemical warfare that was initiated back in World War I. However, America had a secret project that would end up changing the way wars were fought. The Manhattan Project was enacted in hopes that scientists like Albert Einstein could create a weapon so powerful that it could end the war in a few months. The fruit of the project was the atom bomb. It was used against Japan, by literally bringing down the entire cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This shows that America was willing to hurt innocent civilians in order to come out victorious in the war.
[new paragraph] One can see that in order to succeed in any field, whether it is war, education, or sports, people have to be competitive. It is proven throughout history that in wars, generals had to be competitive in the form of better weapons, more men, more money, and better intelligence in order to come out with the spoils of battle. In a sense, the saying, Survival of the fittest, actually does make a lot of sense and it will only lead people to try harder to achieve what they want.</p>
<p>I don't grade essays very often so I'd hardly consider this opinion to be a good reflection on what it would actually get, but I'd say it's about a 4 maybe a 5.</p>
<p>I don't think you were clear enough in saying how exactly the American Revolution and World War II were survival of the fittest situations (if that made sense). You did too much showing in your body paragraphs and not enough telling. I also don't like how at the end you mention "One can see that in order to succeed in any field, whether it is war, education, or sports..." because you only talk about war and a little bit about sports in your introduction. This might be a technicality, but you can't claim that "one can see" if the reader hasn't seen anything in this essay about how in education you need to be competitive. I'm not really sure that that beginning part about the gym teacher makes much sense either. Also, try to be more eloquent in your introduction and conclusion; a lot of your sentences were choppy. An improvement in vocabulary would be nice too.</p>
<p>I agree with the previous post, this would be a 4 or 5. Sentences were a little awkward, wording a little bit too simple, but the main problem is developing your central idea. Also, I don't think America was ever truly the enemy of France at any point, but that may simply be my lack of basic knowledge, so correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think these examples showed so much a need to compete to improve as much as the ability to set aside all differences in order to win.</p>