<p>Another essay thread. I just hope my title was enticing enough for some of you to click on this! :P
Prompt: Is the way something seems to be not always the as it actually is?</p>
<p>Essay:</p>
<pre><code>From a young age, people have been told not to judge a book by its cover. This adage and various examples from literature and history show that what something seems to be may not reflect what is actually is.
In Khaled Husseinni’s “The Kite Runner”, the protagonist Amir’s father is portrayed as a kind and extremely charitable man. Always regarding the public as a part of his own family, Amir’s father spent huge amounts of time and money improving his hometown. He founded an orphanage, always gave money to beggars each time he went out, and helped improve law enforcement. However, after over twenty years in America, Amir’s father passed away, leaving no legacy except for what was left of the family’s old home in war-ridden Afghanistan. In respect to his father, Amir ventured to Pakistan to meet an old friend, where he found that his former best friend and servant Hassan was actually his own half-brother. Amir learned that his father slept with another woman who gave birth to Hassan. As this woman was of a lower social rank, the father gave his best friend custody of Hassan and in this way, Amir’s entire life was turned into a lie. Amir’s father once seemed to be a great man, noble and guileless, but after his trip to Afghanistan, Amir learned that his father only did those generous acts out of guilt. To Amir, Hassan seemed like an average servant, but discovered later that Hassan was really his half-brother. Thus, this novel demonstrates that what life appears to be may in fact be the fa
</code></pre>
<p>This is not bad, but it does have a few glaring problems.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Your introduction is too short. Immediately upon seeing the disparity in size between your introduction and your body paragraphs, your reader will form a bias. Just try to flesh it out a little, even if all you do is make a sentence for each of the examples that you’re going to use.</p></li>
<li><p>Vary your sentence structure. Your first body paragraph is nearly completely homogeneous in the type of sentence it uses. The second body paragraph is slightly better, but still not perfect. What this does is create a sort of repetition for your reader which can make even the most exciting topic seem yawn-worthy. They may even lose focus and not read your entire essay.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Another example would help as well, but given the time constraints, I know that that is not a feasible option for everyone.</p>
<p>As for writing about the Communist Party in China, it probably will not have any negative effects, but it could. If you happen to get a reader who is very sensitive or thinks you are being racist and indicting the entirety of the Chinese population, your score will almost certainly be affected.</p>
<p>If you work on these issues, you may well be able to pull out a 12.</p>
<p>Manarius: Short introductions are not necessarily bad. As long as they grab the reader’s attention and make a clear, concrete point of a stance, it’ll pass. The reader, after all, only has 2-3 minutes to grade the essay.</p>
<p>R3d3mption: For your examples, you need more analysis and less summary. Most essays are docked for that reason. Your point is implicitly implied through your summaries (I can tell your summary shows your point), but not explicitly tied back to support your thesis. If you want a tip, try to keep your summary vs. analysis ratio 30% to 70%. That means, for every sentence you make, link it to the thesis. A sentence should not have the pure purpose of summarizing.</p>
<p>Also, be careful when you take a stance on a political or religious issue. It may or may not influence the reader’s score for you. </p>
<p>No, they are not inherently bad, but I would argue that, usually, you would be better served with a slightly more lengthy one than what Redemption currently has. It would probably work, but just one more sentence would make it seem much better, whether it truly is or not.</p>
<p>I definitely agree 100% with your point about summary vs. analysis though.</p>
<p>I like the short intro. It has a general statement and then you state your stance.
I agree that you need to explain WHY things are not the way they seem. It’s not as explicit as it should be. I’ve also been told to have a strong “topic sentence” in the beginning of each body paragraph. It tells the reader “OH, this is what I’m going to read.”</p>
<p>For this saturday’s SAT focus on explanation and tie it back to your thesis. I always look back at my thesis to keep my focus at 100%. Don’t worry I used to write wishy-washy for a long time.</p>