<p>Hi CC, I am preparing for the October SAT. I finished writing this practice essay today, and I would really appreciate it if you could grade it and give me feedback. It is incomplete (I am terrible at writing five-paragraph, two-paged essays in 25 minutes), but I am posting it here verbatim because that is what an actual grader would see.</p>
<p>By the way, the examples about Joe Weller and his squad and the Chinese brothers were completely fabricated on the fly. This is the first essay I have ever written in which I used fabricated examples.</p>
<p>Prompt: Should people make more of an effort to keep some things private?</p>
<p>The world of today is a very open world. Technologies such as mobile telephones, e-mail, computers, and social networking allow people to communicate and disseminate their thoughts quickly to others. In the United States, specifically, the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech allows Americans to voice their opinions, thoughts, and concerns freely. In addition, government transparency is an ideal that many in the world strive to achieve, and governments are across the globe are trying to become more transparent by releasing information they would have kept locked away years ago. However, as historical and current events demonstrate, some points of contention are better left unsaid, and people should make more of an effort to keep some things private.</p>
<p>One example of why people should keep some things private deals with discrimination. In the United States, discrimination has existed since the country's inception, and although the US is far more tolerant than it once was, openly offensive speech persists, protected by the First Amendment. Not long ago, an American soldier named Matthew Snyder was killed in action in the Middle East. The Westboro Baptist Church, an extremely homophobic and antiwar institution, sent picketers to Snyder's funeral holding signs that read "God hates fags" and Thank God for Dead Soldiers". Such blatantly explicit expressions are very hurtful, especially to a family that just lost someone. In a place where freedom of speech is upheld, people should not interpret it as an endorsement of hateful speech, and they should keep possibly offensive opinions to themselves.</p>
<p>In the military, keeping things is a matter of life and death. On the morning of March 17, 2005, an American staff sergeant named Joe Weller struck up a conversation with an Afghan restaurant owner in Kandahar. The two spoke and laughed heartily, and Weller warmed up to the restaurant owner. He told the restaurant owner where his squad would be camping out for the night, not knowing that the Afghan was a Taliban sympathizer. When Weller left, the Afghan contacted Taliban insurgents, who ambushed Weller and his squad that night, slaughtering 15 soldiers. This story truly demonstrates that "loose lips sink ships," and it also shows that some things ought to be kept private.</p>
<p>A third example of why privacy is beneficial can be found in the story of Tang Lung and his brother, Tang Li. The two brothers lived during the Ming Dynasty and [this is where the essay ends]</p>