grade my essay?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Prompt: Is the world changing for the better? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. </p>

<p>I made a bunch of stuff up, and its kind of incoherent.</p>

<p>We live in a radical period of the world where all nations are interconnected. Cities are being built, but they are also being destroyed. Racsim is beginning to subside, but it is increasing in even more areas. Nations are uniting together to fight world poverty, but it seems like poverty will never end.
Take the war in Iraq, for example. The US is attempting to rebuild the government infrastructure of the country, while at the same time it is destroying complete towns. The US, while in goodwill, is trying to help Iraq, but in essence it is only hurting it.
The US has also taught a new generation that racsim is bad. However, in places like Darfur, genocide is wiping out complete African tribes, and there is nothing other countries can do to stop it. People are killing other people based on their differences in race.
Now look at the United Nations. It is a prime example of a failed attempt to better the current condition. A group of nations is attempting to make the world's current living conditions better by eliminating poverty. Currently however, they are failing. Various nations in the group are going against the purpose of the group by trying to help themselves the most. World poverty will never be eliminated if this goes on.
As shown through these examples, the world is not changing for the better. Despite our best efforts, we are failing as a whole.</p>

<p>How should I improve?
Thanks!!!!</p>

2

<p>You need a kick in the rear end.</p>

<p>“We live in a radical period of the world where all nations are interconnected. Cities are being built, but they are also being destroyed. Racsim is beginning to subside, but it is increasing in even more areas. Nations are uniting together to fight world poverty, but it seems like poverty will never end.”</p>

<p>SO WHAT? What’s your point? </p>

<p>“Take the war in Iraq, for example. The US is attempting to rebuild the government infrastructure of the country, while at the same time it is destroying complete towns. The US, while in goodwill, is trying to help Iraq, but in essence it is only hurting it.”</p>

<p>No, no, no. You do NOT say in three sentences that the United States is currently ONLY hurting Iraq. You’re just saying a load of garbage. I mean, this statement is not supported. You clearly don’t understand all the nuances about the War in Iraq. You’re saying, “Look. Lots of towns are being destroyed. Therefore, the U.S. is only hurting Iraq.” You should be able to see that that is not a valid conclusion to make. It takes much more evidence and understanding to make that statement. Saying what you said makes you completely untrustworthy. You can say that lots of towns are being destroyed, because that’s true. But you cannot use that statement alone to justify that the U.S. is only hurting Iraq. </p>

<p>“The US has also taught a new generation that racsim is bad. However, in places like Darfur, genocide is wiping out complete African tribes, and there is nothing other countries can do to stop it. People are killing other people based on their differences in race.”</p>

<p>So what? That supports the statement that U.S. efforts to teach a new generation that racism is bad is clearly not stopping genocide in Africa. What is this?? So what? What does that have to do with whether the world is changing for the better? “there is nothing other countries can do to stop it.” Oh please. “People are killing other people based on their differences in race.” Well, yeah, they’ve been doing that for a long time. So, is the world CHANGING for the better? The question doesn’t ask whether the world is good or bad. It’s asking whether it’s changing for the better. </p>

<p>“Now look at the United Nations. It is a prime example of a failed attempt to better the current condition. A group of nations is attempting to make the world’s current living conditions better by eliminating poverty. Currently however, they are failing. Various nations in the group are going against the purpose of the group by trying to help themselves the most. World poverty will never be eliminated if this goes on.”</p>

<p>You generalize so much. Avoid that. The United Nations has not gotten rid of poverty. Yes, that’s true. So what? Yes, I think you did make a bunch of stuff up in this essay, and it is not just kind of incoherent. It is very incoherent. What you did in this essay is say that cities are being destroyed, people are killing each other based on race, and poverty hasn’t been eliminated. Do you really think that that answers the question “Is the world changing for the better?” You’re saying that conditions around the world are bad. But not once did you mention any CHANGE, and that is the key word.</p>

<p>So what you need to do when you read the prompt is ask yourself the question: Is the world changing for the better?</p>

<p>Two key words: world and change.</p>

<p>You clearly need to talk about events around the world, since the question is asking about not whether the U.S. is getting better, but whether the world as a whole is getting better.</p>

<p>The next key word is change. To decide whether the world is changing for the better, you need to examine the world in the past, and the world now, and look at the CHANGE. That’s what’s important. And then decide whether the world is changing for better or not.</p>

<p>And please, don’t just say loads of unsupported statements and then arrive at a very bad and hasty conclusion. </p>

<p>In Iraq, towns are being destroyed. Therefore the U.S. is only hurting Iraq. The world is not changing for the better. In places like Darfur, genocide is wiping out African tribes. Therefore the world is not changing for the better. The United Nations still hasn’t eliminated poverty. Therefore the world isn’t changing for the better.</p>

<p>That’s basically what you’re saying in your essay. That paragraph contains your entire argument. You clearly lack a real understanding of what’s going on in the world, and it shows. You didn’t answer the question, which is the most important error of all!</p>

<p>That’s what has to change, and that’s how you should improve.</p>

<p>Did I kick you in the rear end hard enough? If you still think that your essay is good, I clearly haven’t.</p>

3

<p>It seems my essay has offended you. I am sorry, i pulled a bunch of bs out of my butt in 25 min. i never thought my essay was good… and i said in the beginning that i made a bunch of stuff up. But I see your point. thanks.</p>

4

<p>Disclaimer: I’m not trying to offend you, but to help. And it’s a lot easier to help without worrying about your feelings. So no offense.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Increase overall length. Add more sentences, vary sentence length, more long and complex sentences. This is a blanket suggestion to increase quality because holistically, it is bad. Additional length may help to dilute that. An additional paragraph, if possible, would also help.</p></li>
<li><p>Develop a coherent paragraph structure in which you introduce a topic sentence, present evidence, analyze that evidence and use it to refer back to and support your thesis. Use more than 1-2 sentences to discuss each idea</p></li>
<li><p>Your tone sounds like Matt Damon helplessly calling for an end to violence in Sudan, or Obama calling for an end to racism: There’s no substance. Improving your syntax, specifically making long compound sentences when describing the situations in Iraq and Sudan, will alleviate this.
“Currently however, they are failing.” <– Particularly bad sentence)</p></li>
<li><p>Conclusion is weak and terrible. At least attempt to summarize and if possible, provide new insight (do not provide new information though). “As shown through these examples” is also a bland transition. Something better might be “Although entirely unconnected, the situations in Iraq and Sudan point to a common, bleak theme: the world is not changing for the better, and without drastic reform, we will continue to move in that direction”. <- insight.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Obviously that was just a rough idea, and you should seek to expand it to 2-3 sentences if possible, but try something like that and see how you do. Notice how the ideas are more or less the same but the language can be worded a lot differently.</p>

<p>(Btw, I’ll give you a little hint: I use a variation of the above example as a template for almost ALL of my essays. Find something that sounds good that you feel comfortable writing with and use it for every essay)</p>

5

<p>eeeeric: the essay hasn’t offended me, but you have to realize that what you’re saying just doesn’t support your argument. You can’t just draw conclusions from one fact (e.g. US army destroys lots of towns, so world is getting worse). You’ve got to understand that in order to improve. I want you to reread your essay and tell me what you think you did wrong. Try to look at your essay from the eyes of the grader. Focus not so much on length, SAT words, etc., but on the content itself. How strongly do you think you make your argument?</p>

6

<p>^At the level of quality it’s at now, I think he needs to focus on both. Read dchow’s post for help on content and ideas, and my post for help on the technicalities and language.</p>