Feedback for Essay

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Hello :)
I have been reading a few essays recently and was inspired to write my own in preparation for the December SATs. In the essay below, I tried out an essay format that I found in the Barron's 2400 book, in an attempt to test the feasibility of using it in the exams. </p>

<p>I would greatly appreciate it if you could spend some time reading, giving feedback and marking the essay.</p>

<p>Thank you :)</p>

<p>Prompt:</p>

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

<p>Most people think that contentment—being happy with the way things are—is the perfect state of affairs. After all, what could be better than being so satisfied with how things are that you don't want anything else? But contentment has disadvantages: if we are content with the way things are, we are not motivated to change things, to improve ourselves, or to do better. We must therefore always choose between being content and pushing ourselves to do better.</p>

<p>Assignment:</p>

<p>Does being content with the way things are prevent people from improving themselves and doing better? 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.</p>

<p>Essay:</p>

<p>Satisfaction with the status quo is a sure-fire way to stagnate self-improvement. While seeking change and betterment of the situations one are in arouses the response and desire to meliorate one’s life, submitting to the current state of affairs in one’s life ensures that one will never receive such drive. In both literature and history, it is evident that our satisfaction with the circumstances we are in prevents us from progressing and prospering. </p>

<p>In Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, the citizens of the World State are satisfied with their conditions; they do not want change. They renounced their independence to the state, which manipulated the citizens into accepting that there was eternal tranquility and fairness within the world state. In reality, the social constructs of the State were far from peaceful and just. The regime had abolished meritocracy and established a caste system in which individuals were predestinated into one of the echelons: Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma or Epsilon from birth. Persons classified under the castes, Gamma or Epsilon, were genetically modified to be less intellectual and cloned for manual labor under harsh conditions. However, members of this stratum did not romance a better life or seek revolution; they were ambivalent to their state and paid the price by relinquishing the fate of their lives and their ‘successors'’ to suppression. Thus the erroneous contentment of the Gamma and Epsilon class demonstrates that contentment with what one has will eliminate the will to advance.</p>

<p>Historical examples also direct us toward the conclusion that satisfaction with current conditions will prevent self-improvement or rather, in the case of this following example, impede the betterment of an entire nation. Gandhi, a non-violent revolutionist fought for the freedom and liberation of India from the British Empire. Gandhi did so out of indignation of British exploitation of India. The British exploited India by suppressing and maltreating the Indians as slaves, reaping the profits of their blood, sweat and tears while requiting bagatelle infrastructural improvements such as the development of the road system within India. After being liberated, which was possible only with Gandhi's will for change, Indians reaped what they sowed and displayed buoyancy over their freedom. Therefore, from Gandhi’s endeavor and discontent with the repression of the yoke of colonization, it is ostensible that through dissatisfaction of current conditions, we can be stirred to make worthwhile and propitious improvements to the lives of others and ourselves.</p>

<p>These examples of the initiative of Gandhi to oppression and the apathy of the Epsilon and Gamma strata serve to show that satisfaction with the status quo is inevitably bound to cease our desire to improve and progress; contentment is therefore a way of preventing us from improving. </p>

<p>Thanks again for reading :)</p>

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<p>Oh ya would you guys recommend 2 examples or 3 examples? (this message serves as a bump as well)</p>

3

<p>ESSAY STRUCTURE and ORGANIZATION: 4
VOCAB: 5
GRAMMAR/SYNTAX: 6
USAGE: 6</p>

<p>This paper is a 5.</p>

4

<p>How was usage assessed? I am not questioning why it is a 6/6 but what went into assessing that. And is the overall 5 an average of the four categories?</p>

5

<p>

There are few noticeable errors in punctuation and other basic English conventions. This is a miniscule part of the overall score. </p>

<p>

No, they aren’t weighted evenly.</p>

6

<p>Thank you for that explanation! Might you want to say how you did derive your score of a 5? Would you care to say what received more weight?</p>

7

<p>It would be better to tone down the vocabulary- it is detracting from what you are trying to say in numerous places. “it is ostensible that through dissatisfaction of current conditions, we can be stirred to make worthwhile and propitious improvements to the lives of others and ourselves.” Sprinkle in 3 or 4 words and call it a day. </p>

<p>“Brave New World” is fine as an example, although denude it of its vocabulary. Your second example I dont like so much- is this about Gandhi or India? You define this in terms of economics (British reaping all the profits) but then define improvement as “buoyancy over their freedom”. In fact my impression is that after Indian Independence the country entered a protracted period of economic stagnation that only ended in the '90’s. </p>

<p>If you wanted to make a point about the benefits of independence verse a Commonwealth government you should make more clear the effects on the population. Does the common person really care the governmental structure behind the elected leaders? Make that point. </p>

<p>I’d say it is a mid-4 right now.</p>

8

<p>thx for the feedback :)</p>

9

<p>argbargy may I ask how you come up with your weighting scheme to assign the overall grade? i know it’s not a precise weighting scheme by any stretch of the imagination, but if you could humor me and assign me extremely rough, ball-park figures, that would be amazing.</p>

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<p>Oh ya, how would you recommend improving the structure of the essay</p>

11

<p>The conclusion and particularly the topic sentences of the body paragraphs have too much emphasis on the examples. The question is not about Brave New World or India and should therefore be relegated to the role of support. You do have an opinion about whether being content does prevent people from improving themselves. It’s just a matter of making that more of a focal point and hammering that in rather than having that buried in between your examples rather than your examples supporting the opinion. </p>

<p>Does being content with the way things are prevent people from improving themselves and doing better?</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>I am not an insider so I dont know if there is a specific weighted metric.
So I use the SAT Essay scoring guide, focusing primarily on how well the reasoning and examples support the position.<br>
[SAT</a> Essay Scoring - How SAT Essays Are Scored](<a href=“The SAT – SAT Suite | College Board”>Understanding SAT Scores – SAT Suite | College Board)</p>

<p>In this case I liked Brave New World but thought Gandhi didnt add enough.</p>

<p>"-Develops a point of view on the issue and demonstrates competent critical thinking, using adequate examples, reasons and other evidence to support its position</p>

<p>-Is generally organized and focused, demonstrating some coherence and progression of ideas"</p>

<p>Even though I didnt like the India example, there is some organization and progression here because Hindsight has given us two sides of the argument- in the novel people were satisfied and here was the result; in India people were dissatisfied and here was the result (sort of, that part was a bit of a muddle).</p>

13

<p>From a quick reading a give this a 4. Don’t stretch your vocabulary so much, a lot of those words don’t work the way that you’re using them. Also some issues with the examples.</p>

<p>I make SAT prep videos. Would you be interested in having your essay analyzed in a video?</p>

14

<p>Thank you argbargy. jkjeremy’s score above with all of the break-downs gave me the impression that the scoring could be slightly more mathematical than I had been thinking. (Note: I did not say 100% mathematical or 100% quantitative. Just slightly mathematical)</p>

15

<p>Ok it could be. jeremy knows far more about any putative metric than I do.
It makes sense that one would exist since CB like reproducibility. </p>

<p>Sense I dont know any of the weightings I dont think it makes sense for me to apply them. For instance, I would give an essay a 6 regardless of the lack of SAT words. And I dont think a 2 gets boosted out of the basement by a lot of vocab.</p>

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<p>argbargy I share the same perspective as you. I’m simply reading the posting earlier in which jkjeremy assigned several numbers and asked him what he then did with them to get the overall one.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>It’s just a quick way (in this case a little too quickly, which I’ll explain in a moment) to assign a rough value to what the kid did with the four most important things that writers do.</p>

<p>In this paper, looking more closely there’s no way that the kid did a “six” job in the area of syntax. There are just too many stilted and awkward expressions. This also manifests itself in the vocab part of the score. Using the wrong words (these “SAT” words) often leads to unclear or downright indisputable phrasings.</p>

<p>Therefore I apologize to the student for misrepresenting the “grammar/syntax” aspect of this paper. Although it can’t be a six in this area, it’s still a five because the kid clearly has syntactical facility. In terms of college-level writing, this paper is clearly stronger than most.</p>

<p>Readers are often skimmers. Typically, when I deal with kids I’ll give them a pretty detailed breakdown of each aspect of his work and then we go from there. Obviously in a forum like this my function is to help, yet I simply don’t have the time to spend 45 min on a paper here.</p>

<p>Anyway even adjusting that one score downward, this still looks like a five to me.</p>

<p>It’s so easy to nitpick and find little problems, but we have to keep in mind that the readers (of which I have been one many times) are charged with finding what works as opposed to penalizing what doesn’t.</p>

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<p>Please take all of the following in the spirit in which it is meant. You are an excellent writer who can benefit from constructive criticism, so . . .</p>

<p>I think you are trying to hard. You clearly are an excellent writer, and, based on comments on other threads, have a strong understanding of what is necessary to write a great SAT essay. Yet, you fail to do that here. Arg couldn’t be more correct about toning down the vocabulary. Also, focus less on impressing the reader with your knowledge and more on strictly fleshing out your argument. If you stick to a much more simple approach of stating your thesis, supporting it very directly through 2 or 3 examples (I prefer 3) and summing things up while restating your thesis in the conclusion, your natural writing ability and understanding of grammar and structure should make a 6 very easy for you.</p>

<p>A few random comments to supply the fine work done above:</p>

<p>Assignment:</p>

<p>Satisfaction with the status quo is a sure-fire way to stagnate self-improvement. While seeking change and betterment of the situations one are in arouses the response and desire to meliorate one’s life, submitting to the current state of affairs in one’s life ensures that one will never receive such drive. In both literature and history, it is evident that our satisfaction with the circumstances we are in prevents us from progressing and prospering.</p>

<p>I would even more specifically tie your thesis to the prompt.
“Stagnate self-improvement” - awkward
“the situations one are in” - how about, “a person’s situation”
“one’s life” - shouldn’t be used twice in one sentence
“receive such drive” - drive isn’t received</p>

<p>In Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, the citizens of the World State are satisfied with their conditions; they do not want change. They renounced their independence to the state, which manipulated the citizens into accepting that there was eternal tranquility and fairness within the world state. In reality, the social constructs of the State were far from peaceful and just. The regime had abolished meritocracy and established a caste system in which individuals were predestinated into one of the echelons: Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma or Epsilon from birth. Persons classified under the castes, Gamma or Epsilon, were genetically modified to be less intellectual and cloned for manual labor under harsh conditions. However, members of this stratum did not romance a better life or seek revolution; they were ambivalent to their state and paid the price by relinquishing the fate of their lives and their ‘successors’’ to suppression. Thus the erroneous contentment of the Gamma and Epsilon class demonstrates that contentment with what one has will eliminate the will to advance.</p>

<p>Your BNW examples do support the thesis. The essay would benefit though if you focused on more support of the thesis and less plot.</p>

<p>", which manipulated the citizens into accepting that there was eternal tranquility and fairness within the world state." - how about “which “had” manipulated the citizens into believing that the State could provide eternal tranquility and fairness.”</p>

<p>replace predestinated with placed</p>

<p>“members of this stratum did not romance a better life” - how about “citizens did not pursue a better life” </p>

<p>“paid the price by relinquishing the fate of their lives and their ‘successors’’ to suppression” - how about “paid the price by accepting suppression in their lives and the lives of their children”</p>

<p>Historical examples also direct us toward the conclusion that satisfaction with current conditions will prevent self-improvement or rather, in the case of this following example, impede the betterment of an entire nation. Gandhi, a non-violent revolutionist fought for the freedom and liberation of India from the British Empire. Gandhi did so out of indignation of British exploitation of India. The British exploited India by suppressing and maltreating the Indians as slaves, reaping the profits of their blood, sweat and tears while requiting bagatelle infrastructural improvements such as the development of the road system within India. After being liberated, which was possible only with Gandhi’s will for change, Indians reaped what they sowed and displayed buoyancy over their freedom. Therefore, from Gandhi’s endeavor and discontent with the repression of the yoke of colonization, it is ostensible that through dissatisfaction of current conditions, we can be stirred to make worthwhile and propitious improvements to the lives of others and ourselves.</p>

<p>I think you are saying that because Gandhi was not content, he was able to improve the lives of people throughout India. If that’s true then just say it. If not , you need to be much more clear.</p>

<p>The words, requited, bagatelle, buoyancy, ostensible appear to be used in the wrong context </p>

<p>These examples of the initiative of Gandhi to oppression and the apathy of the Epsilon and Gamma strata serve to show that satisfaction with the status quo is inevitably bound to cease our desire to improve and progress; contentment is therefore a way of preventing us from improving. </p>

<p>Its hard for me to understand the conclusion because I don’t understand your point in the prior paragraph. Regardless, the conclusion needs to be more clear. It would also be helpful if you provide an insight which ties together your examples in support of the conclusion</p>

<p>the initiative of Gandhi to oppression - I don’t know what this means
I would mention “doing better” in the conclusion</p>

19

<p>Alright, I think I’ll work on word choice more. I got a little carried away with this essay haha.</p>