Grade another one of my essays please!

Test Preparation
1

<p>I can probably get a 7/8 from my last essay. Hope it will be better this time.=)
Any advice is welcome!</p>

<p>Prompt:Is identity something people are born with or given, or it is something people create for themselves?</p>

<p>Essay:</p>

<p>Identity is a four-syllable-word that comes attached to life’s three F’s: fame, fortune and faith which are commonly concluded as a single word “success”. It is tempting to think that people born in upper-class are born with identity. However, accepting the notion that identity is something people are born with is analogous to agreeing that one’s destiny, one’s future is predestined and there is no way in altering one’s path in life. Thus, identity is only created by those who work assiduously for it.</p>

<p>Andrew Carnegie, known as the king of the steel, was born in a indigent family in Scotland, 1835. At the age of six, his family was too poor to afford his education while other friends of his went to school with well-groomed clothes and new schoolbags. Afflicting with hunger, poverty and loneliness, he spent all day wondering how his life would be if he had enough money to join the other kids in the classroom. Working in daytime and studying at night, although young Carnegie’s life was full of misery, he never lost the dream to change his life. The days after American’s Civil War, resigning from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Carnegie started his steel industry and spared no effort to work. Carnegie, whose company had over 20,000 employees and shared a market of 65%, shocked the world. After gaining the identity of a successful businessman, he gained the identity of a generous philanthropist by donating money to build schools, libraries and concert halls. Nowadays, few Americans have been left untouched by Carnegie’s insightfulness, strong will and generosity.</p>

<p>The richest and the most philanthropic African American of the 20th century, Oprah Winfrey, served as a compelling example to thesis that identity is created by oneself. Living in rural Mississippi with her teenage single mother, Oprah experienced considerable hardship during her childhood including being raped at the age of nine and becoming pregnant at 14. She put all efforts on the work in the TV station and started her own TV show. From 1986 to 2011, over 33 million people in the world watched the Oprah Winfrey Show every week. Oprah Winfrey’s experience assures that however the family we are born in, it is our choice to become who we are.</p>

<p>To sum up, we can’t choose our family, but we can choose to be an identified person for we are the master of our own fate. Identity is not in our vein. It is something people created for themselves with tears and sweats.</p>

2

<p>Please help me! I will really appreciate it!</p>

3

<p>The first half of your intro paragraph is wheel-spinning. It echoes the slogans characteristic of bad motivational speakers. The second half (starting with ‘However…’) is where you get down to business and is much better.</p>

<p>one’s destiny, one’s future, …‘analogous’ is not really the right word, King of Steel, into an indigent family, </p>

<p>“Working in daytime…change his life.” This sentence needs work. It should also end the paragraph.</p>

<p>We jump from poverty to his resignation from unspecified , but probably elevated, position with railroad. That is quite a jump. There is another jump from a pregnant and impoverished 14 year old girl to a television station</p>

<p>‘however the family we are born in’ , ‘an identified person’ , ‘not in our vein’ (a nice try, but should at least be ‘not in our veins’ ), ‘with tears and sweats’ … these are not the way a native English speaker would express these ideas.</p>

<p>“Shared a market of 65%” is not idiomatic. ‘insightfulness’ should be ‘insight’. </p>

<p>Your analysis should be deeper. You make essentially the same points with both examples. Both examples occur in the US. Is the opportunity for individuals to create their own identity the same elsewhere? Are we limited by the identities others impose on us? Can all limitations be overcome? These are possible points you could have made to extend your analysis.</p>

<p>Are you a native English speaker? If not, you need to read more in English and seek out a native English speaker to work with you on American idiom. An SAT scorer is not allowed to take into consideration the fact that a writer may be from another country. They must score the essay as they find it. All errors count.</p>

<p>score range is 6 - 8.</p>