SAT practice test #4 from blue book (first edition) Rank my essay from 0-6. Shooting for a 3 at least (not a good writer). Give some feedback and what I should improve on. Thank you!
Prompt(box with info.):The old saying, “be careful what you wish for,” may be an appropriate warning. The drive to achieve a particular goal can dangerously narrow one’s perspective and encourage the fantasy that success in one endeavor will solve all of life’s difficulties. In fact, success can sometimes have unexpected consequences. Those who propel themselves toward the achievement of one goal often find that their lives are worse once “success” is achieved than they were before.
Assignment: Can success be disastrous? Plan and write an essay in which you develop . . . (blah blah you know the rest).
Essay: The benefits of a particular goal or achievement is what motivates us to push forward and become successful. Although we might not realize it during some points in time, but for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. When we achieve success in one goal, disastrous consequences can arise in effect.
When people strive to achieve success, they tend to focus their mind on that one objective. In result, their perspective is potentially, and perhaps dangerously, narrowed. This might make a person carry out things that he/she might not usually do. A student, for example, might need to finish his/her project that is due the next day of class. Therefore, the student possibly might stay up the entire night just to complete the project. The student might have finished the project, but the lack of sleep because of this will have an temporary effect on her academic performance and possibly her daily function. Consequences like these are only temporary, but success can have long-term effects as well.
In my freshman year of high school I used to be the “cool kid on the block.” I had many friends, and many enemies. My mind was so focused on the social aspect of high school that my grades were at the bottom of the pit. It wasn’t until the following school year I decided that I would focus my attention not on my friends, but on my academics. So every day then on, instead of sitting with my friends during breakfast and lunch and talking on the phone all night, I sat at a table alone and studied all day and night in hope of an overall improvement. Within weeks, my grades started to skyrocket and I felt absolutely amazing. I never paid much attention to my friends after that, but I noticed I was losing them as the weeks went by (they were very scornful of my behavior as well). Eventually I had no one to whom I could talk. I realized that now everyone thought of me as their enemy, all because I wanted to be successful in school.
Success will always have its consequences no matter what the situation might be. However, we must understand what might result if we do reach out and become more than what we are now. The only question we must ask ourselves is whether or not the turn we make on the road is worth the dead end that can possibly be at the end of it.