Could anyone please evaluate my SAT essay?

Test Preparation
1

<p>This was homework for my SAT prep academy, but the teacher didn't check it, so yeah, I need it to be evaluated. I don't think the essays that great, but I just need to to know where I am. Please give a score if you can!! :) This was the assignment: </p>

<p>"In crisis is cleverness born." - Chinese Proverb</p>

<p>Assignment: The statement above implies that crises can benefit us by fostering creativity. Write an essay supporting, disputing, or qualifying this statement. </p>

<p>In grand failure, success is born. Failure is a mistake that teaches people not to repeat. For instance, if a student fails a test, he or she learns that more focus is needed on the subject. Thus, the student improves and learns not to fail once again. The Chinese proverb, "In crisis is cleverness born" is accurate to many significant events in history. The Great Depression, attack on 9/11, and the aftermath of the Korean War exemplify the subject of how crisis benefits people by fostering creativity. </p>

<p>After the roaring twenties, with all the luxury and glamorous days, America collided with the horrifying economic crisis: The Great Depression. This period of time was a devastating time that started in the United States and became a worldwide crisis. Post-WWI, money became a big thing for most of American people. However, after the stock market crashed and most industries declined, the poor became even poorer. On top of that, the Dust Bowl affected most provinces and farmlands, which put people into homeless positions. This was, in fact, layers and layers of booming crises. Such ravaging event awakened lessons that people hopefully learned from. Money was obviously not something to manipulate or use excessively until the point of crisis. Crisis increased the wariness of money in people since then. </p>

<p>Although the idea of a crisis is usually used in economic ways, terrorism can also be considered as a crisis. Another event that caused terror worldwide was the 9/11 attack. The crisis of the bombardments of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was a symbol of hatred and horror. Such event put the American government into action, along with many other countries that fought against terrorism. 9/11 was an unexpected event that put every individual into caution. </p>

<p>Lastly, the aftermath of the Korean War was the major even that caused South Korea to rise again and become the country it is today. The Korean War, between South and North Korea, caused not only over a million deaths, but also the split of Korea. Due to this war, Korea was considered one of the countries that contained the most amount of poverty. It was truly a dark time for the Korean population during the 1900s. Especially after freedom from Japan, korea had to experience such split and hardship. A few years later, after the Korean War ended, however, South Korea bloomed into a completely new nation. This war sparked people to work even harder to get out of poverty. Today, South Korea shows a great amount of success and wealth.</p>

<p>Crisis sparks new ideas and motivation. Although terrifying and painful, crisis still leads to a certain kind of success or at least a bit of ease.</p>

2

<p>The prompt sounds more like an AP DCQ than an SAT essay, interesting topic though. </p>

<p>I would give this essay a three, tops, mainly because you don’t establish the link between crisis and creativity very soundly. Your first body paragraph goes a great depth in describing the Great Depression. Other than showing you paid attention in history class, this does very little for your essay. Instead of describing how and why the people were poor, simply state it and focus more on analyzing why this fostered creativity. Your conclusion in the first body paragraph seems to be that the crisis of the Great Depression made people more frugal. You do nothing to connect this back to creativity; what does being thrifty entail that makes it creative?</p>

<p>The same thing holds true; you describe the horrors of terrorism and how it’s made the world more cautions; you don’t explain why that qualifies as ‘creativity’. Your last paragraph concludes that South Korea’s rise to wealth was a result of the Korean War; again, no connection to creativity. More importantly, you don’t mention creativity at all in your conclusion, and seemingly replace it with success. </p>

<p>If the essay topic was whether crisis led to success, you would have scored much higher, but it seemed as though you lost track of your own thesis. </p>

<p>Apart from that, your other main issues are content and clarity. As I mentioned earlier, the amount of background content you give is unnecessary. For example, the sentence “The crisis of bombardments of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was a symbol of hatred and horror” in your second body has nothing to do with your argument apart from restating that terrorism is a crisis. You should also avoid commentary, like the first sentence of your second body paragraph; it is also unnecessary. </p>

<p>Given the amount of time graders spend on each individual SAT essay you want to be as clear and concise as possible. Make your reasoning clear and detail it step by step. SAT essays are not really graded for use of rhetoric, rather for the quality of your argument. I was taught that it is best to leave all flowery language out, especially in the introduction and that a good setup for the intro is just 1. thesis 2. clarification of thesis and segue into examples 3. brief explanation of first example 4. brief explanation of second example. It’s very structured and would not work for an AP essay, but is a good design for an SAT essay. </p>

<p>Finally your conclusion is extremely short. The conclusion is probably the most important part of your essay. The graders want to see that you can draw conclusions based on examples about a given topic, so make sure you go through your argument again in your conclusion. It’s usually a good idea to reword your thesis and your thesis clarification that you had in your intro, then go through your examples again to cement them. </p>

<p>Overall comments: stick to the prompt, cut the background information, be more clear and direct, draw conclusions, and analyze your examples. My apologies if this came out harsh, hope this helps!</p>

3

<ol>
<li><p>“The Great Depression, attack on 9/11, and the aftermath of the Korean War exemplify the subject of how crisis benefits people by fostering creativity.”
^^^^If this is supposed to be your thesis, I think it is very weak. You just restated the assignment and restated your examples. You should try to develop it more. Maybe say how people used creativity to conceal the pain felt by each crisis. Or how crisis became a catalyst for rapid advancements in society (creativity). You should try to develop it past the blunt restatement of the assignment.</p></li>
<li><p>Good examples. Real life historical examples always seemed more pronounced and better to use for me. (in my opinion).</p></li>
<li><p>I think there is a big problem in your essay. You perfectly state your examples and what they are and their historical background but you fail to answer the prompt. You talked about the success that came out of each event but where is the cleverness? Like for the first example, you should explicitly say how people had to adapt to the changing conditions. You should say how people had to become smarter and more advanced to live in society. You should quote the quote “Survival of the Fittest”. I think you could have elaborated more on how each crisis lead to people becoming more clever rather than waste all that space on the background information.</p></li>
<li><p>For your conclusion, you should have a statement that ties all 3 points together to the prompt. Say like how out of each war and endeavor, humanity had to advance and become smarter to live in a world where only the fittest would live. Using the Korean War and the Great Depression and 9/11.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Overall, this essay has a alot of work left. I would give it a 4/6 or 5/6 range.</p>

4

<p>Thank you! I do agree that this essay had all those problems. It felt really messy when I read it :confused: I think I didn’t interpret the prompt correctly and just wrote what I thought the prompt meant. haha Anyway thank you!</p>