Essay Grading

Could somebody please score and critique my SAT essay?

Prompt: Should more fortunate people have a moral obligation to help those with lesser fortunes?

All human beings should maintain a moral obligation to help those less fortunate than themselves. While nobody is lawfully obliged to help those with lesser fortunes, human beings should compassionately take it upon themselves to lend a hand to anyone who may need it.
A prime example of voluntary gratuity stands in Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was a businessman who built a vast and nearly unmatched fortune is the steel industry. However, Carnegie goes down in history as a benevolent, gratuitous philanthropist rather than a mere businessman. Carnegie donated his self made fortune prior to his death, dieing a poor man. He had no binding obligation to do so but rather acted out of compassion and gratuity, out of a felt moral obligation to help those loss fortunate than himself.
Even those without fortunes can exemplify such compassion, not by giving all they have, but by giving something to those who have less. Humans should act out of moral obligation to give to those with less.

This essay seems a bit unfinished to me. You are given two full pages to use for your essay; use them!

As MITer94 said, your essay is a bit too short for an SAT essay. However, there are some parts of your essay that deserve commendation.

Before I start with your introduction, let me just state beforehand what your essay lacks, other than suitable length: Though you do answer the prompt and say that the more fortunate should indeed help the less fortunate, you never specify WHY. Why should we help out those who are less fortunate? For improved human welfare? To help the less fortunate realize their true potential? It may seem obvious, but always providing the reason WHY to a “should” question always makes for a much better argument.

Now on to the essay. Your introduction is good - you clearly state your stance and provide just the right amount of elaboration to substantiate your argument without making the introduction too wordy. I would, however, advise that you mention the examples that you will be using in your essay. It makes for a well-structured essay that lets the reader know just what to expect.

Your first (and only) example is a great way to support your argument. Carnegie made a huge fortune out of his steel industry, and proceeded to give away a vast proportion of his wealth to the poor. So far, so good… But again, where’s the WHY? One or two sentences detailing the effects of Carnegie’s generosity would go miles to strengthen your argument. Were lives saved? Did society improve? Once you start listing the positive effects of helping out the less fortunate, we the readers will better understand the extent to which your stance holds ground - even if, yes, any half a decent person would know that helping out the less fortunate can only do good. Other than this, take note of the following grammar errors:
-In the third sentence of the first example, ‘dieing’ should be ‘dying’.
-In the fourth sentence, ‘loss’ should be ‘less’ - though I’m assuming this is a typo.

Great introductory sentence for the conclusion (though I have a nagging itch that tells me it would also perfectly open a second example that delves into how even those who aren’t stinking rich can help - but that’s neither here nor there). Again, though, it would have been great to end the conclusion with a mention of the WHY. I know I must sound like a broken record at this point, but I really must insist that it would make for a greater argument. In addition, try to squeeze in one more example - using literature, history, current events, even personal examples if you can spin it well enough.

6/12. You really, really, REALLY have the potential to get 10 or higher - it’s just that the length, and the lack of WHY, is really dragging you down quite a bit. It was a great read, however, and I look forward to reading more from you.

Disclaimer:
This is my personal opinion and my projected score may not accurately reflect the real scores given by the actual SAT essay graders. My opinion is independent of that of PaulAcademy International.