grade another essay for me?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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<p>Another essay from me :] big test coming up in October and still preparing th essay section. please criticize harshly for my benefit. thank you!</p>

<p>Quote:
1. Success in life is largely a matter of luck. It has little correlation with merit, and in all fields of life there have always been people of great merit who did not succeed. – Karl Popper, “Popper Selections”
2. As Colin Powell said, “There are no secrets to success. Don’t waste time looking for them. Success is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – Adapted from Barry Farber, “Selling Points”</p>

<p>Prompt:
Is the success in life earned or do people succeed because they are lucky?</p>

<p>Essay:
There are many definitions of success among the general public. To most people, it means having a good life, a good family, and lots of money. Although the definition might vary, all success involves one important element – hard work. The value and importance of hard work has been proven over and over again in numerous history and literature.</p>

<p>In history, we learn about all kinds of famous and successful people. One such person is the first president of the United States – George Washington. We learn about the greatness our country on the basis of learning about the greatest people ever lived on American soil. George Washington’s actions and ideals set a perfect model of hard work to students nationwide. In class students learned about his numerous wondrous achievements on and off the battlefield. But his biggest achievement involved the Revolutionary War. He was chosen as the commander in chief of the American army fighting against the British. The British had much better manpower and brainpower. Washington did not back down. He took the position and began a job filled with pressure and hard work – planning the attacks, the defense, the backup, the currency allocations, and much more. It was a gruesome job that required strong mentality as to not break down from the intense hard work. Luck did not play a role to help him pull through. When the people chose him as the president after he liberated the United States, it wasn’t because he was lucky; it was because he worked hard to be the people’s hero.</p>

<p>Success is also majorly portrayed in many literatures. In one literature, the book “Things Fall Apart,” main character Okonkwo led to a life full of success of the typical definition – having a good life, a good family, and lots of money. Of course, some people might think that he was lucky and inherited all his wealth from him relatives. This is completely false, as shown in the book, for, he has no relatives besides his father, who was a common drunkard. Seeing the disgrace and harsh treatment his father received from the village, Okonkwo vowed to change the family impression. He started from scratch to build up his farm and grow yams (yam is the money crop in this African village). His hard work pays off and he becomes one of the most successful and respected man in his village</p>

<p>Some people may still have doubts about luck’s role in many international phenomenons such as the success of Facebook and YouTube. Critics claim that the founders were lucky to hit “the spot” of internet roamers. What these people fail to understand is that it takes hard work to initiate and launch an idea that hit “the spot.” Many unpredictable problems rise up as the founders try to formulate a plan. The mere technicalities involved with programming and troubleshooting may take weeks or even months of constant hard work. The amount of work it takes to perfect everything is infinite. This is why there is only one Facebook and one Youtube.</p>

<p>In all, hard work is a general rule of regulation for anyone wishing to be successful. As shown by George Washington, hard work will pay off. Not anyone could have done what he did on and off the battlefield. “There are no secrets to success,” as Barber Farber says. How true this is considering that the mountains of tasks one has to do to achieve success. You can’t be great without working your butt off. You can’t just sit around and wait for the good things to fall out of the sky. And as every child should know – “no pain, no gain.”</p>

<p>Thank you very much for reading it!</p>

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<p>I encourage you to rethink your approach to this question. You breeze through the notion of “hard work” in each of your examples – saying “so and so” worked hard, but without providing a basis for that statement. Take just one example of someone (in politics, in literature, or in business) and describe his preparation, his one or two major failures, his recovery and rise above the failures, and his one or two major successes that connect to the initial failures. Whatever you do stay away from your notion of what critics or what the reader may think. That dilutes your essay. You need much more depth in arguing “your” point.</p>

<p>Rewrite the essay without a time limit. The point is to understand what a 12 essay entails and to write an example of that essay. In practice you won’t have enough time to write that perfect essay but at least you would know what you’re aiming for.</p>

<p>My sense that in its current form your essay would receive an 8 or so.</p>

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<p>Thanks fogcity for your help. I’ll try more indepth arguments in the future.</p>

<p>BUMP. can someone grade this?</p>