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41

<p>Please grade my essay and give me tips on how I can improve. I always feel that my essays are childish and not professional.</p>

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

<p>It is very important for people to be serious about themselves and to make serious efforts to attain their goals. In school or at work, for example, people have to put in real effort and stay focused on their tasks; in sports, people have to train hard and concentrate on improving their skills. People who are serious, however, forget there are other important personal qualities they should develop.</p>

<h2>ASSIGNMENT: Are people too serious? 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.</h2>

<p>In life, people are engaged in a variety of tasks. Some people go for work to earn money. Some people might be players of a certain sport, and they are trying hard to become famous and successful. Others might be students working hard to pass their exams. Ultimately, we should all recognize that we will eventually die, so we shouldn’t get so serious as if what we do, of things in this world, is totally essential.</p>

<p>To illustrate this, I will depict the life of a talented young boy I know named Alabui. He was successful in High School and achieved the highest grades. In his final Edexcel IGCSE he attained the highest score for all thirteen subjects, an A*. Alabui’s parents, proud of their son, did everything they could for their son. They took him to the US and entered Harvard University. Alabui was very serious on fulfilling his and his parent’s desires; these meant everything to him. Having forgotten something called gratitude and appreciation to a god who created the Universe, Alabui graduated the University. To him and his parents, it seemed that an auspicious life was waiting him. Right after graduation, Alabui, on his way back to his homeland, got into an accident and died.</p>

<p>The question people who attended his funeral were asking each other after they had heard his story was ‘Did Alabui’s seriousness take him somewhere safe?’Unfortunately, the answer is ‘NO.’ Alabui was never religious enough to thank God on the blessing he gave Alabui. He thought that being successful in this world and becoming serious about it was everything.</p>

<p>In conclusion, it is not wrong to be serious about ones goals in this life, but one should always remember that there is a god that gives things to people. After all, what god did for us, is it right to forget about him and get too serious about your own concerns? After all, it is a duty of everyone to show gratitude to God and pray to him so that he or she lives in peace in the hereafter.</p>

42

<p>I think it is a 3 because your reasoning isnt strong enough.</p>

<p>“In life, people are engaged in a variety of tasks.” My new favorite opening sentence ever ;-). It would be better if you used a colon or a dash after this instead of a period. </p>

<p>The big issue here is the lack of clarity in your example demonstrating your thesis. Would not have Alabui have died traveling regardless of his seriousness or gratitude to God? It sounds like the outcome would have been exactly the same. It would have been better (for your purposes) if some local B* girl (who Alabui had ignored in high school in favor of integrating multipart equations) had thrown herself into the grave wailing that at last she would be able to be together with her beloved Alabui. Or maybe the story ends with some concrete demonstration of Alabui moral desolation- maybe he starts his auspicious life and falls in with a fast amoral crowd and ends up hooked on drugs. When people see him years later Alabui is just a wasted skeleton of his former self selling plasma for his next fix.</p>

<p>The other small issue you have is that you really arguing that people are arent serious enough, right?</p>

43

<p>I have a feeling that English is not your native language. It’s another 3/6; your writing style is too childish and there are too many grammatical mistakes.</p>

44

<p>Assignment: What is your opinion of Buck’s viewpoint that good people must always strive against evil?</p>

<p>Response:</p>

<p>Good people must always strive against evil. It is because they couldn’t let ill-willing people take control of them. It is also highly significant not to give evil humans to use our own inventions, ideas and knowledge to achieve their own goals and fame.</p>

<p>First of all, good people must not give malevolent ones a chance to control them and decide in their matters. Perfect example of that behavior is Indian spiritual leader, Mahatma Gandhi who showed extreme persistence in his attempts to combat british forces in order to get independence for for India. He had never give up which resulted in his assassination. But fortunately independence was obtained. Therefore he is a great example that proves that good people has to strive against evil.</p>

<p>Secondly, benevolent must not approve of behavior of ill-willing humans. As it is shown in a famous movie ,Social Network’’ which features a life of young genius, Mark Zuckerberg who had found well-known social website called facebook. He made it all on his own but as we can see in the movie he was being used by a group of evil people who just wanted to become famous and wealthy by applying Zuckerberg’s idea. It all ended up in court but what’s sure is that Mark has never given up his belief that facebook is effect only of his own work and determination. That example perfectly illustrates the need that good people must fight against evil.</p>

<p>All in all, it is definitely true and sure that combating evilness by good people is a need in today’s world. It could prevent them from ill-willing people who wants to seize control of those benevolent. It is also a great way to not let them achieve their own goals, and fame through our own efforts.</p>

45

<p>3/6: Simple ideas, moderate grammatical and structural errors</p>

46

<p>Ok. thank you. Could you point out some of those structure and grammatical errors from my essay?</p>

47

<p>“It is because they couldn’t let ill-willing people take control of them”
Should be “They can’t let malevolent people control them”</p>

<p>“It is also highly significant not to give evil humans to use our own inventions, ideas and knowledge to achieve their own goals and fame.”</p>

<p>Awkward use of the word ‘significant’, childish thinking.</p>

<p>“First of all, good people must not give malevolent ones a chance to control them and decide in their matters”</p>

<p>Vague pronouns</p>

<p>Basically I could copy and paste every sentence. It’s all incorrect. Please buy the Barron’s SAT book and review the grammar section.</p>

48

<p>Hi patrus,</p>

<p>It looks like a 3 to me. </p>

<p>I am not persuaded at all by the logic of your examples. You have a number of awkward phrases and unfortunately the reasoning isnt strong enough for a grader to ignore them. </p>

<p>For instance:

  • “ill-willing people take control of them”
    -“not to give evil humans to use our own inventions”
  • “malevolent ones”
  • " Perfect example of that " use ‘A perfect example’ instead
  • “benevolent must not approve of behavior of ill-willing humans” both benevolent and ‘ill-willing humans’ are awkward.
  • “Mark has never given up his belief that facebook is effect only of his own work and determination.” Dont call him by his first name. An ‘result’ is a better word here than ‘effect’.
  • names of companies need to be capitalized. eg Facebook.
  • “it is definitely true and sure” ‘sure’ is awkward and unnecessary. </p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

49

<p>Thank you very much argbargy and midas222
I appreciate your help a lot!
I think I’ll have to be more creative and try not to commit grammatical mistakes.</p>

50

<h2>I just want to know if this rewritten essay is good because there is no point in writing essays within 25 min if I can’t write a 12 mark essay within a longer time.</h2>

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

<p>It is very important for people to be serious about themselves and to make serious efforts to attain their goals. In school or at work, for example, people have to put in real effort and stay focused on their tasks; in sports, people have to train hard and concentrate on improving their skills. People who are serious, however, forget there are other important personal qualities they should develop.</p>

<h2>ASSIGNMENT: Are people too serious? 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.</h2>

<p>In life, people engage themselves in different tasks and become very serious about them: some might be workers working hard to earn money to sustain themselves and their families’ needs; others might be players of certain sports, working hard to become famous and successful while others might be students striving to achieve high grades in their exams. Despite the fact that it is necessary for us to be very serious in what we do, we should not forget to have social and jocular personalities at times; otherwise, we will not succeed.</p>

<p>To illustrate this, I will depict the life of a young talented man I know named Fred. He grew up in an amazing way; he was the best student in his high school, and he got A*s in all the thirteen subjects he did in O Levels. In his senior year of high school he registered for the SAT and just on the first try got a 2400. It was only then when his class teacher advised his parents to work hard for their son in higher-level education and that they were lucky parents. Fred’s parents applied for him a place in Harvard University and was admitted right away. It was clear to both Fred and his parents that Fred had an auspicious life waiting for him. Fred made an oath not to let down his parents expectations of him and focused on nothing else but his studies in the University to an extent that he even cut relations with all his high school friends. Furthermore, he didn’t even bother making new friend in the University because to him, new friends meant a burden to his seriousness and therefore his success.</p>

<p>After three years of struggle to succeed, in solitude, Fred prepared for his final exams. Surprisingly, it was discovered that Fred had become strange and on medical checkup, it was discovered that Fred had mental problem leading to a complete disorientation of his memory. How unfortunate? The main cause of all this was because Fred never had close friends or people he would talk to with his daily problems, joke with and seek advice. Being human beings we need each other to live and without this we would be stressful and unsuccessful.</p>

<p>In conclusion, we are and should be serious but not too serious to an extent that we lock ourselves from others, focusing only on our goals. How many people are there that become like Fred; statistics have shown that almost 20,000 to 30,000 people end up having mental problems due to stress every year. Therefore, we should be serious people who are social and jocular at times for our own benefit of health and success.</p>

51

<p>" and just on the first try got a 2400… Fred’s parents applied for him a place in Harvard University and was admitted right away"</p>

<p>Its clear from the Parents thread that Fred would have been wait listed for being insufficiently vibrant. Change his name to Trey. </p>

<p>Ok, now you have a clear thesis to address the prompt: lack of jocularity leads to stress and mental problems. Thats fine. You only have one example for this, and it is not academic, which I dont like. Keep in mind that when you write a paper like this there is nothing showing the graders that you even went to high school. </p>

<p>The next thing to examine is has your example proven your thesis is generally true? When you only use a single example you have a danger of not being able to demonstrate extensibility. Fortunately you cite “statistics have shown that almost 20,000 to 30,000 people end up having mental problems due to stress every year” which addresses the generalization. The problem is that this comes out of nowhere- there should be a little more information about where this came from. Plus 20K is essentially a piddling number, even if the comparable population is just the US. 20,000 people died from tomato related accidents. You really wanted something like “USA Today reported that a recent Federal government study estimates that excess stress negatively impacts over 1 Million people each year to the point that they have to seek assistance of a mental health professional. The impact to the economy is estimated at $4.5 billion.”</p>

<p>Also paragraph 3 would have been better if it supported your thesis more strongly. Maybe doctors forced Fred to take a semester off and he has now developed some hobbies. Is he even engaged now and hopes to be clear to retake his exams in the Spring? </p>

<p>Over all I think it could be a 5 because I think there is just enough of a progression of reasoning to get you up from a 4.</p>

52

<p>Prompt: What is your opinion of the idea that playing is more important that winning?</p>

<p>Winning the competition you are taking part in is crucial. It increases your overall confidence and makes you sure that you’re enough competent to participate. It is also true that only playing and not winning doesn’t give us a prize.</p>

<p>As an example of that I can surely mention a great basketball player, Michael Jordan. He is considered the best basketball player of all times. In this case, winning the was a huge factor in his success. He not only gained such necessary confidence, but also assured himself that he was enough adept and had enough skills to successfully compete with other players and teams. As a result of that he was decorated with a lot of individual awards. Concluding, nothing could be achieved without consecutive wins streaks that made him such a good player. </p>

<p>In addition, only participating in games doesn’t give us financial benefits. This aspect is perhaps not very much pronounced in medias but it is undoubtedly of great significance for one who participates. As in example of my friend Tom who had been playing soccer since childhood it is clearly visible that financial aspect of competition also plays a crucial role in one’s life. As a teenager he was very talented and full of motivation to get better. But when he eventually turned eighteen he had to decide whether to continue or stop playing soccer. Unfortunately he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t wait until any professional team would have taken him because he needed money outright to pay his apartment and to start living on his own. Playing in amateur clubs didn’t guarantee. In Tom’s case, indeed, financial aspect played a key role.</p>

<p>All in all, as shown on Michael Jordan’s and Tom’s example, we can clearly see that winning is more significant that just playing. It not only gives us a great deal of confidence but also could provide us with substantial sum of money.</p>

53

<p>4</p>

<p>The Michael Jordan paragraph was pretty good. It would have been better if you had included some Jordan quote about winning.</p>

<p>The Tom thing was disastrous for your thesis. “Winning” and “getting paid” arent the same thing. You can be a professional athlete who’s team loses a lot but you still get a high level of pay. And you can be a win all the time and not make any money at it. Is playing more important than winning? We dont know because Tom decided to do neither. </p>

<p>I think you conclusion is a bit lacking too. "It not only gives us a great deal of confidence but also could provide us with substantial sum of money. " The graders arent going to be impressed by just income. Especially since losing teams payrolls are usually about the same. You should have made some larger point about the pay days making the managers, trainers, equipment, restful vacations possible that ultimately lead to even greater accomplishment. Usually Olympic wrestlers are good examples of this. </p>

<p>This essay is smoother but you still have some awkward phrases such as “pronounced in medias” and “As in example”.</p>

54

<p>4/6. It has the potential to be 5/6 if you improve your grammar. Please buy the Barron’s SAT 26th edition and read over the entire grammar section. Also consider taking English lessons somewhere because I can tell it’s not your native language.</p>

55

<p>Thank you !!!</p>

<p>Is it important to question the ideas and decisions of people in positions of authority?</p>

<p>With the deeper understanding of human chronological events comes an interesting question, which concerns the paradox of challenging the authority. Many people, deeply influenced by the traditional view, hold the belief that authorities are invincible. However, from my point of view, the challenge to the authority often comes with revolutionary ideas and inspirational theories.
The spirit of challenging the authority, one of the most valuable qualities of human beings, could greatly alter the inspiration and innovation, which will enormously boost the development of science and society. Such idea can be perfectly exemplified by the personal experience of Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher renowned for his bravery to challenge religious community. In Bruno’s era, Roman religion took charge of social thinking and made every effort to propagandize the superiority of gods, thus most people fanatically believed in the existence of intangible gods. After Copernicus became the first to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced earth from the center of universe, Giordano Bruno, in favor of Copernicus’s idea, made his way to illustrate the advancement of the theory in a theoretical way. However, Bruno’s idea that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings confronted with the gist of Roman religion, and was thought as blaspheme against the god. To maintain its dominant position, Roman religion suppressed the spread of Bruno’s idea, accused him of heresy, and sentenced him to death. It is the challenge to the authority that brings in revolutionary ideas and new understanding of the world.
Apart from the instance of science, the realm of technology abounds with many examples that can serve my idea. Jack Welch, the former chairman and CEO of General Electrics from 1981 to 2001, earned a solid reputation for his uncanny business acumen and unique leadership strategies at GE as he bravely challenged the bureaucracy within the company by introducing policies such as reducing employees and layers of human sources hierarchy, implementing informal atmosphere in GE and promoting efficiency of the firm. Eventually, the value of the corporation rocketed from $12 billion in 1981 to $280 billion in 2001, and he himself remains a highly regarded figure in business circles due to his innovative management strategies and leadership style which injected fresh and healthy blood to GE.
The personal experiences of Giordano Bruno and Jack Welch serve to illustrate the great value of challenge to the authority, which pushes forward the advancement of society.</p>

56

<p>Hmmm… where did you get that essay question? That seems a little suspicious to me but I technically can’t say why.</p>

<p>4/6 - bad grammar. Big words don’t look impressive when you don’t understand English well.</p>

57

<p>First- clearly delineate your paragraphs
Secondly make sure you position on the prompt is clearly stated- yours is mushy. </p>

<p>Then forget all the advice you have read about template opening and SAT words. About 50% of the essay we read start “Since the beginning of recorded time one paragon paradigm of human aphorisms that remains immutable is ‘never a borrower nor a lender be’” or some other horrible mishmash. </p>

<p>Your version of this is "With the deeper understanding of human chronological events comes an interesting question, which concerns the paradox of challenging the authority. "
. This doesnt help you at all- you’d be much better off writing a clean sentence in your own voice. </p>

<p>The Giordano Bruno section is almost incomprehensible. The graders dont try to fact check for accuracy but what you are saying about “Roman religion” is plain wrong. Roman mythology had a pantheon of gods and was part of the Roman empire which was dead by the 4th century AD. Bruno wasnt part of the “Roman religion” and neither were the Italian states at this time. The religion is Catholic, or Roman Catholic if you want to distinguish it from Eastern Orthodox, and is monotheistic so they wouldnt have been “propagandize the superiority of gods”. They way you have written it gives the impression you dont know anything about this episode you are using as an example. </p>

<p>The Jack Welsh thing is a bit better but you have an issue here in that Welsh was the CEO and COB of GE. He <em>was</em> the authority figure in the company so its a bit difficult to argue the prompt on “questioning people in authority”. You might get away with it if you had very specific examples of when he had to go against the Board of Directors or conventional wisdom and convince people he was right. Instead you have vague stuff about him “reducing employees” and “implementing informal atmosphere”. If this example to really work you needed who object to his policy, how he over came objections, why his policy was sound and what specifically it led to in terms of results. </p>

<p>Overall I think this is a 3. You have the start of an argument but it is not well supported by your somewhat vague examples- " inconsistently or use inadequate examples, reasons or other evidence to support its position" is the CB criterion.</p>

58

<p>bumpbump bumping.</p>

59

<p>assignment: What is your view of the claim that the opinion of the majority is not always right?</p>

<p>The opinion of the majority is not always right. That is clearly noticeable through many historic events, such as Einstein’s development of Theory of Relativity and also in famous movie ,Coach Carter’’</p>

<p>First example, which shows that majority’s decisions and claims are not always true is one of the best scientists ever, Albert Einstein. He is well-known mostly because of his development of theory which stated that everything on our planet depends on forces of gravity and also claimed that every motion is relative. At that time very few believed in those explanations. Therefore public’s opinion ruled out Einstein’s theory and considered it incorrect. However, after Einstein had died, scientists began to test his theory. As It finally turned out, after several decades of testing, his theory was regarded as perfectly right. That history shows that majority’s views are not always correct.</p>

<p>Another example which ideally illustrates that mass is not always right is movie , Coach Carter’’. That movie shows us the team which starts from humble beginnings to finally achieve great success. Initially, basketball players that are trained by coach believe that in order to achieve success they don’t need to make much of an effort and that they will win games effortlessly without training so much. As they start to lose a few games in a row they seem to realize that nothing could be achieved without proper training, as coach Carter said them previously. After they start to follow his ideas and start to train diligently, team is winning more and more games. That example shows us that opinions of majority are not always right.</p>

<p>Concluding, this is definitely true that views and beliefs of mass are not always correct. As shown in history of Einstein’s theory and in a movie ,Coach Carter’’ individuals may be sometimes right but are not always appreciated.</p>

60

<p>Patrus, I think it is most likely a 3/6, but possibly a 2/6 depending on the grader. I’m not sure what you are planning on doing, but how did you manage to pass the TOEFL?</p>