Grade my essay please!!!

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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<p>I got an 8 on my last essay and am writing again on Saturday. I'm not terribly worried about the essay, but am wondering where I stand/if I've improved/declined. So please share your feedback, tips and critiques! This took me 23 minutes to write. </p>

<p>Prompt: Experts have long debated the influence television has on people's behavior, especially with regard to teenagers' behavior. Some claim that TV's influence is miniscule, while others argue that it shapes the lives of our young people.</p>

<p>Assignment: Do you think television has a positive or negative impact on the behavior of children and teens, or any impact at all? Use your personal experience and examples from literature, history, or science to support your argument.</p>

<p>Television has a very negative impoact on the behaviour and character of children and teens. TV takes away from forming meaningful relationships that will positively impact the youths life, pulls them away from their studies and also harms the forming of their character.</p>

<p>Television, which has made a rapid rise in the last 50 years, takes youth away from their loved ones, mentors and friends. Instead of playing Barbie's with her new friend, 6-year-old Chelsea opts to watch her favourite TV show, Dora the Explorer, sacrificing bonding time on the alter of television. More consequently, Chelsea's older sister Rebecca (and my friend), recently went to visit her grandmother in Toronto. I called her to chat and see how she was doing, but she informed me she was watching TV and would have to call me later. Rebecca chose TV over talking to me, her friend, but more importantly, she chose TV over spending time with her grandma. Her grandma who lives very far away and will not be around for much longer. The electronic box chronically robs youth of memories and deep relationship.</p>

<p>TV also harms education. With the constant presence of the TV set in my home, I often find it difficult to concentrate on my studies. Early fall is particularly trying, because many of my favourite shows begin new seasons. The temptation to watch a fiction (and very engaging) story play out on a screen often wins over working on homework. Last December I noticed an alarming swoop in my GPA, due to the lack of time spent studying and excessive amount of time spent watching TV. As soon as I started cutting back my time engaging in this lazy activity, my GPA began to rise. </p>

<p>Among the educational and relational implications of watching TV, there are also scientific consequences. Not only do the radio waves kill your brain cells, TV also has harmful "social science" consequences. When teens and children engage themselves in TV shows that display poor morals and bad behaviour, the youthful audience will pattern their behaviour after that depicted by the characters. Because the characters are generally of their approximate age (or perhaps a bit older), they "look up" to the characters and want to be like them. This teaches them bad behaviour, which directly and negatively affects them and those around them. What goes in (the TV they watch) must come out (often in the form of their behaviours and attitudes). </p>

<p>Thus, TV has no positive impact on teens and children. The electronic box does nothing but encourage lazy and rude attitudes, takes away from study time, and most importantly, robs human interaction of its strong influence.</p>

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<p>Hi there! I’m no expert on writing essays for the SAT so I’m not sure that my advice will be all that useful, but my tutor recommends to me not to use first person narrative when writing out an essay. Of course, there have been plenty of people who have used first person in their essay and received a double digit score, but I find that in my case, using third person rather than first helps make the essay sound more professional overall. Even though you use personal examples, you can change it to impersonal ones by writing things like, “Rather than playing with games or reading books, children instead opt for watching popular television shows, such as []” instead of referring to a specific person you know in real life. Use of third person isn’t necessarily vital for everyone, but it may help you.
Another thing that may help is to use a variety of types of examples to support your claim. For all three of your examples, you used personal ones. These are okay to use, but it’s probably best to only have one sort of that type of example in your essay. I would use historical, literary, or current events and studies as your other two examples to supplement your essay. For instance, when you say, “TV is shown to have negative effects on education,” instead of citing a personal example afterwards, you could say, “Several studies that were compiled and published in News Scientist have shown that the programs children watch on TV have a potentially negative effect on their academic performance. Kids who watched the least amount of TV in their childhood tend to have a higher IQ and a higher probability of graduating from college.”
Again, I am no expert on the SAT, as the most I’ve ever taken are practice tests and the PSAT, but just some thought there. I wish you luck on the test! :)</p>