Could you please take a look and score my essay? Thank you very much.

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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<p>Hi, can you read my essay, score and comment about it? Which score would you give? Do you think I can improve this essay a little? Can you edit grammar errors in this essay for me? What do you think about its structure, focus, and organization of ideas? Are the ideas relevant to the essay prompt? You are free to comment. I appreciate all of your help.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.</p>

<p>Many people believe that our government should do more to solve our problems. After all, how can one individual create more jobs or make roads safer or improve the schools or help to provide any of the other benefits that we have come to enjoy? And yet expecting that the government—rather than individuals—should always come up with the solutions to society's ills may have made us less self-reliant, undermining our independence and self-sufficiency. </p>

<p>Assignment:</p>

<p>Should people take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.<br>

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>. I think people should take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities, because, to some extent, everyone can do something to help, regardless of one's age or education. This would make the society better and better, and less dependent on the government.</p>

<p>. Few could disagree the fact that no matter who you are, you can do something helpful to the community. If you are strong, you can help as volunteer worker with road or house building projects. If you know foreign languages, and understand much about your city, you can be a volunteer tour guide to help foregn visitor understand the true values and beauties of your homeland. If you are pretty well-educated, you can register to be a volunteer teacher and go to work in some remote areas where the needs for good teachers are high. If you are active, you can create your own projects to help benefit the community, such as having people donate food, clothes for poor people, or having aid workers go to some tornado-ravaged areas tohelp local people there. If technically everyone can help, why don't overcome laziness and ignorance to volunteer.</p>

<p>. The second reason why people should do something helpful is that doing so, the society will be much better and better. If more and more people do volunteer work, then volunteerism can easily be fostered in the mind of young kids, the future generation. They in turn will do a great deal to help society. Some ignorant old people will feel inspired and motivated, and will be encouraged to contribute their talent and experience to help build the country. More importantly, after all, people will enjoy themselves very much for doing such a virtue, and this emotional happiness would indisputably the biggest reward.</p>

<p>. In conclusion, each individual has to feel his or her own responsibility for other fellow citizens, and this will make the society better. We should not rely too much about the government. It is definitely essential to the well-being of people, but still it can sometimes become perverted when being subjected to some interests, as occurred in some countries in the world.</p>

<p>THANK YOU FOR READING MY ESSAY.</p>

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<p>I've edited it some, with comments in [brackets]. I'm not always sure that I understood what you were trying to say. </p>

<p>Most generally, I'm not sure you completely addressed the question: even if everyone can contribute (and even if we ignore the fact that what some people think is a contribution might seem to others not to be), does that mean that we can solve the problems we have come to rely on government to solve for us? Or that we should? We can all work on volunteer housing projects, for instance, but it's hard to come up with the money to ensure that we have land on which to build homes for people who can't afford to buy houses already on the market. Many of us have the skills to go out and teach, but a lot of us do not have enough money that we can afford to spend much time teaching or travel far from our homes in order to teach. And what if some of us donate clothes to people who need them, but we don't collect enough clothes to meet the needs of people who need the donations?</p>

<p>I think that part of your argument (from the "ignorant old people" section of the essay) is that if enough people donate their labor and their resources for the good of the larger community, everyone will start doing it. I would have preferred to see you develop that part of your argument more. Do you think, for instance, that if donating clothes to people who need them becomes common enough, we will end up collecting enough clothes so that everyone will have the clothes he or she needs?</p>

<p>This probably isn't something you can do in an essay this short, but since you've noted that people will feel good once they contribute, it raises the question of what it feels like for people to receive those contributions, and whether there's a difference in how those people feel when their needs are provided for as an act of charity versus a government-administered right. </p>

<p>At any rate, I think it has promise and I think you have some good ideas, but I would have preferred to see you go into more depth when it comes to exactly how you think people contributing what they can will free us from overdependence on government.</p>

<p>I think people should take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities because everyone can do something to help, regardless of one's age or education. This would make society better and less dependent on the government.</p>

<p>Few could disagree with the assertion that no matter who you are, you can do something helpful to the community. [Actually, I can think of several counterexamples: children under the age of 2, people who are stuck in nursing homes because the services necessary for them to live in the community aren't available to them, people who need all their energies just to have enough resources to survive, etc.] If you are strong, you can help as volunteer worker with road or house building projects. If you know foreign languages and know much about your city, you can be a volunteer tour guide to help foregn visitor understand the true value and beauty of your homeland. [In the US, which is large and sees itself as diverse, I think you're going to run into a lot of people who don't see showing off your city as a way of showing off your homeland. I think it's easier for people from smaller countries that see themselves as culturally homogeneous to make that leap.] If you are pretty well-educated, you can register to be a volunteer teacher and go to work in some remote areas where the need for good teachers is high. If you are active, you can create your own projects to help benefit the community, such as having people donate food, clothes for poor people, or having aid workers go to some tornado-ravaged areas to help local people there. If technically everyone can help, why don't overcome laziness and ignorance to volunteer. [I'm not sure how you see this sentence fitting in here. I might edit it to "Since everyone can help, we should overcome laziness and ignorance to volunteer" or to "If everyone can help, why don't we/more of us overcome laziness and ignorance to volunteer?" I think it's stronger as a sentence than as a rhetorical question, though.]</p>

<p>The second reason why people should do something helpful is that if we do so, our society will be much better. If more and more people do volunteer work, then volunteerism can easily be fostered in the mind of young kids, the future generation. They in turn will do a great deal to help society. Some ignorant old people [I have the impression you're using "ignorant old people" to mean "people who don't know what they have to offer" or something, but in the US "ignorant" is very often used as a pejorative. The rest of the essay has a sense of optimism about people, and the word "ignorant" here is jarring] will feel inspired and motivated to contribute their talent and experience to help build the country [here again, because the US is large, I would probably use a word like "community" instead of "country" when writing for an American audience]. Most importantly, people will feel good about their contributions and themselves, and this happiness would be the biggest reward.</p>

<p>In conclusion, each individual has to feel his or her own responsibility for other fellow citizens, and this will make society better. We should not rely too much on the government. It is definitely essential to the well-being of people, but still it can sometimes become perverted by special interests, as has occurred in some countries in the world.</p>

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<p><<<deleted>>></deleted></p>

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<p>Thank you very much, nontraditional, for your comments. I have a few questions?</p>

<p>1) Was the word "ignorant" used correctly in this essay? There are two here:
If everyone can help, why don't we/more of us overcome **laziness and ignorance* to volunteer?*
Some **ignorant* old people will feel inspired and motivated to contribute their talent and experience to help build the community.*
If using "ignorant" in the second case is not correct, do you suggest any other word? By "ignorant," I simply mean some people who don't have a sense of optimism or confidence in the young, and don't want to contribute to the society? Are the above sentences idiomatic?</p>

<p>2) Besides the sentences and word choices that nontraditional has edited, is there any sentence or expression that is unidiomatic? Could you please tell me how to edit? Thank you.</p>

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<p>This is probably a 6-7, by the way I don't think volunteerism is a word...</p>

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<p>Ah, sorry about missing the two uses of "ignorance". I meant the second. When you say "laziness and ignorance" you aren't directing it at any one person and you appear to intend to be somewhat judgmental.</p>

<p>In the second sentence, I might say something like "Some older people who had previously felt useless will be inspired ..." but I don't think that's quite what you're trying to say. Maybe "Some pessimistic older people will feel inspired and motivated to contribute their talent and experience in the hope that they can help build the community"? I'm not sure. What you need, obviously, is a fairly brief way to capture this. "Some people who don't have a sense of optimism or confidence in the young will be inspired to contribute their talent and experience in the hope that they can help build the community"?</p>

<p>And yes, "volunteerism" is a word.</p>