<p>Hey guys! Im a rising sophomore and i just took my first PSAT from the college board. Now, before you say I'm too young or something like that, i didn't WANT to take this test, its just that my sister just started college counseling and her counselor told my parents that i should take the online test just to see where I am. I myself, wasn't too thrilled about taking a 4 hour test on a saturday. Anyway, i just got the results, and here they are:
Reading: 680
Writing: 730 (MC: 68, Essay: 12)
Math: 640
Now are these good results for a rising sophomore? Im confident i could get my Math grade up, its just that i haven't been doing math for 3 months (ohh summer :) ). But are these okay? (Okay, edit point here. I know these are okay. I know that they are high above the national average. Im talking about are they good for someone who eventually wants to get a 2300+ come Junior year?) The Total in 2050. I've just seen so many awesome PSAT and SAT scores on CC that its made my confidence go down maybe?
Thanks for your time!</p>
<p>I think that’s an SAT, not a PSAT.</p>
<p>And yes, a 2050’s not a bad score. Math and reading you can definitely get up. However, I don’t know how accurate their essay grading is (I got a 10 when I almost always got 8’s), so you may want to post your essay here for others to grade it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response! Ill post my essay ASAP, i just have to figure out how to find it…</p>
<p>Found it! Here you go! (Anyone feel free to comment and critique, don’t afraid to be harsh, i know what i think i can do as a writer and i would appreciate any other opinions or perspectives):
"People should make an effort to keep information private, because if and when the information is discovered, it can be detrimental to all parties. Several examples from current events and literary works clearly demonstrate that secrecy has close ties to misfortune.
In the recent wiki-leaks case, hundreds of top-secret government information was released through a series of leaks and slip-ups arranged by the infamous Julian Assange. The release of these secrets, many to do with foreign interaction overseen by the United States Department of State, was detrimental to US foreign policy, and ended up weakening and testing ties with foreign governments and international entities. Those who would defend the United States secrecy could claim that it was in the interest of our national security to maintain such high-profile and dangerous information as covert, but the argument that this information should have been made available to the public far outweighs the counter-position. If the Department of State had instead decided to make the information accessible the foreign governments and citizens alike, the content of the letters and documents would not have been as shocking nor as harmful to our international relationships. Our foreign counterparts would have been able to know our complaints about them, and our praises of them, all while feeling grateful for us having let them know what we were thinking. Therefore, as exemplified by the WikiLeaks incident, by maintaining secrets and attempting to keep information private, the release of the covert content itself has a much more unfortunate impact than if it has been made known all along.
In of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, the secrets that George keeps about Lenny from the rest of the men on the farm leads to numerous deaths and other unfortunate outcomes. George keeps Lenny’s past killings a secret so as to let him work at the farm and therefore generate an income that could go towards George and Lenny’s dream of having a farm together. However, by keeping Lenny’s dangerous nature a secret and instead only exposing him as a strong and gentle fellow, he allows the rest of the farm community to approach and interact with Lenny in ways that activate his anger and cause widespread misfortune and danger. Through these interactions, which were made permissible by George’s decision to keep Lenny’s past a secret, Lenny ends up killing a series of animals, a woman, and ultimately, himself. If George had revealed Lenny’s nature to the men on the farm, they would most likely not hire him, and potentially even attempt to have him arrested, but at least his life would be spared as would countless others. Therefore, through analyzing the effects of George’s secret in Of Mice and Men, we can see that trying to avoid unfortunate outcomes by keeping information secret, can often lead to far more serious results.
Lastly, in the play The Children’s Hour, by Lillian Hellman, Rosalie keeps a secret that involves her theft of another child’s prize possession. When discovered by the main antagonist, Mary, Mary uses the secret as blackmail to coerce Rosalie into compliance with her malicious plans, showing another negative aspect of keeping information private. Rosalie had, before the start of the play, stolen a piece of jewelry from another girl at the school Mary and she attended. When the mother of the other student found out, she threatened the unknown thief very heavily, inducing Rosalie to go into a panic, making her keep the secret that she had stolen the necklace. However, when Mary finds out, she threatens to expose Rosalie unless she does what she tells her to do, and, Rosalie, scared of being found out, reluctantly complies. So when mary spins a lie that her teachers (both female ) are having intimate relationships with one another so she doesn’t have to go back to school and calls in Rosalie as a witness, Rosalie agrees, crying all the while. This lie results in the school being closed and the suicide of one of the teachers, all because Rosalie testified that a lie was the truth. Finally, when Rosalie is found out, she admits the truth and the situation is mended the best possible, but the damage had already been done. Rosalie’s secret is a perfect example of how keeping information private can subject one to the desires of another through blackmail, and further reveals the detrimental nature of secrecy.
Through all these examples one can see that throughout literature and current events, secrecy and over-zealous privacy can only results in misery and misfortune. Therefore, as exemplified by Julian Assange, Of Mice and Men, and the Children’s Hour, secrecy is detrimental.</p>
<p>bump 10char</p>