My ESSAY from Jan SAT!!

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Okay here is essay that is 9/12. Now, I want to get at least 10-12 on next one and I was wondering what I missed in this essay. Any feedbak will be great. Thanks.</p>

<p>Prompt: Should people take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general? </p>

<p>Essay:</p>

<p>Benjamin Franklin once wrote in his book, "Well done is better than well said." In this world with many dangers lurking in daily lives, people have to help and aid one another. As Franklin remarked, actions must happen as well to bring changes. I think that it is incumbent for people to take more responsibility for solving problems in their communities or nations by helping others with actions.</p>

<p>During the Great Depression, Americans had two contrary presidents ------ Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover. When Hoover was president, he didn't carry out any help to his nation until at the very end when he built Boulder Dam. He believed in the "rugged individualism," or idea that people should overcome their challenges and not depend on government. But his attitude and actions brought disastrous results, and only FDR saved the America. Through his New Deal, FDR started reforms for economy, finance, and unemployment. He created various organizations such as AAA, CCC, WPA, FDIC, NRA, and so on to stop depression. Clearly, FDR's committment toward the nation was much better than Hoover's aloofness.</p>

<p>Second, the book Dangerous Minds featuring LouAnne Johnson was a pivotal instance of this. Based on the real events, this book illustrated how critical it was for teacher to save kids with "problems." Ms. Johnson met students who did drugs, alcohols, and basically that went against moral uprightness. Yet through her incessant effort to help these students, some of them changed and even went to the college. Her action helped community because not only did the community become safer to live, but also it saved great amounts of students and their parents from quotidian misery.</p>

<p>At last, our school provided another critical example. In the Key Club, members and other students in the Track team carry out annual event called the Special Olympics. Special Olympics is basically an event where students with disabled abilities participate in many interesting events. Community benefits because it provided opportunity for normal kids and kids with needs to meet and become friends. I remember making friends with a kid named Dustin, who rode in a wheelchair.</p>

<p>Consequently, people need to take actions to help in the community and nation. No one is robust enough to survive alone. We need each other for this crazy world.</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

2

<p>Well, I don't know if this is intentional or not but you put "...was president, he didn't carry out..." in your second paragraph. Generally, avoid contractions as it makes the essay seem informal.</p>

<p>Also, be sure to explain how the examples relate to the thesis. If you state the examples but not explain them, then the essay graders are more inclined to take points off.</p>

3

<p>You have good examples but you need to use more persuasive language</p>

4

<p>I think that's where I get points off. I can't seem to persuade the reader well. Any good tip on this? Like should I be more forceful? Except I'm not sure how I can do that though.</p>

5

<p>Use more comparing transitions (like paying3tuitions always says). Your transitions are just too methodical (first, second...). You also need better vocabulary</p>

<p>Though thinking about all these things under timed conditions is very hard</p>

6

<p>For this SAT, I just couldn't think about good vocabulary. I have decent number of vocabularies but yeah, thinking them is not always easy.</p>

<p>As for transitions, what are good ones to use? Even my English said that I lack good transitions and well, I don't know other ones well.</p>

7

<p>Maybe you should more fully develop one idea before moving on to the next. Do more analysis of each example.</p>

8

<p>If you take a moment after you choose your 3 examples, see if they will fit along a spectrum, a line. I see your examples arranging themselves like this: national (presidents), community (Dangerous Minds) and school building (Special Olympics). In other words, from large to small scale.
That would give you a "hook" to help organize your entire essay, and also provide you hope for coming up with good transitions and opening words for each paragraph.
Here's how you could end your first paragraph, "I think that it is incumbent for people to take more responsibility for solving problems through action, whether they work in the national, city or local school environment."
That organization lets you start each of the three paragraphs in more interesting ways. For example:
paragraph 1: As the American nation struggled out of the Great Depression, two contrary presidents, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, demonstrated opposite extremes of inaction and action. </p>

<p>paragraph 2: In her community struggling with drugs, alcohol and crime, LouAnne Johnson, in Dangerous Minds, showed how one teacher's powerful actions could redirect her students' lives. Showing an example of moral uprightness, she...</p>

<p>paragraph 3: Even at the most local level, our own school's Key Club acted positively by creating one specific event to introduce disabled and able-bodied students to each other.</p>

<p>(Grayfalcon, can you see how you set it up in the first paragraph so you could move from large to medium to small size in your essay? It helps hold it together, and makes it easier to come up with interesting "topic sentences" (first paragraph sentences) for each of your paragraphs.</p>

<p>I really like your conclusion! Here, your essay really built itself up so the conclusion comes as a natural extension of all the work you've done in the paragraphs above.
I'd only change it to say, "..actions to help in the nation, community and school." so you maintain your organzing theme of big, medium, small.
Your last 2 sentences as you wrote them are the best in the whole essay! What were you feeling right then? More relaxed, more yourself, more persuasive? Because THERE you have the convincing sound of your own heart and mind. If you can possibly do more of that, I think you'll have the persuasive tone you would like to achieve. You have it right there, that's for sure! So whatever you were feeling right there -- comfort, confidence, ease, yourself-ness...do MORE of that. Write from the center of your being, with all your mind and heart, and it will come out to move, inspire, persuad others to see it through YOUR eyes. That's what persuading is. Bring the reader alongside you to see it as you do; put your arm around them and SHOW them what you are seeing.</p>

9

<p>also have you seen this collegeboard link
it has the essays all graded, 1-6
i can't write it out in a line, b/c this site somehow cuts it off, so i'll put it in a column, but you type it out as a line:</p>

<p>collegeboard.com/
student/
testing/
sat/
prep_one/
essay/
pracStart.html</p>