Just did a practice test on KhanAcademy and would REALLY appreciate if someone helped me grade this.
Prompt: https://fastly.kastatic.org/KA-share/sat/5LS02E%20Practice%20Essay.pdf
Grading: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/scores/understanding-scores/essay
Dana Gioia effectively argues the point that the decline in reading in America can have dire negative effects on society. She does so this through her use of facts and statistics, building her credibility, briefly addressing her counter argument, addressing potential negative effects, & finally proposing a solution.
The author starts the passage off with bombardment of facts. She states that though many things - such as income, college attendance, & access to information - have risen within the past century, arts & literature have declined. This fact allows the reader to comparatively guage how much literature has been neglected. Gioia continues by going into detail on specifically where these declines have taken pace by providing scholarly reports from the US Bureau of the Census. This builds the author’s credibility as she is no longer a stranger giving her opinions on an event, but is instead a writer who backs her claims with fact. The usage of facts from credible sources makes the reader more inclined to believe the author’s claim.
The author continues her argument by briefly addressing a potential objection. Dana states how book reading of all kind, not just traditional literature, has significantly declined. By addressing a potential counter-argument, the reader is more inclined to see the author’ as objective in her analysis, thus allowing the reader to be more willing to support her stance.
Next, Dana Gioia goes into the specifics of how the decline in literature can negatively affect society. She provides professional opinions from employers about the importance of literature, & how literature related aspects such as creativity & imagination are talents business men & women like to see. The usage of declining literature’s negative effects on the workplace give the reader’s a real life example where it could impact their own life. The problem is no longer abstract, or only existing in the statistical world. It now has a real world application. This requires that the reader take notice of the problem lest their income decreases. The author continues providing evidence of real life consequences when it proposes that 15-26 year olds will become more ignorant in the civic sphere; the passage states how young people do not understand citizenship & our appreciation for democracy is limited. This snatches the attention of the younger, jobless readers who may have believed none of this applied to them. No longer are they innocent young readers shielded from these potential consequences; they are now individuals whose own livelihoods are affected, as civic knowledge affects everything from who you elect to city counsel to who you elect as president.
The author wraps it all up with a preposition for a potential solution. She states how the growing awareness of the problem $ libraries are no longer enough, but instead addressing the problem will require leadership from politicians & the business community. By providing a starting point for fixing the problem, the author establishes herself as sympathetic to the problem & as actively engaged in addressing it. This builds the a sense of comradery between the reader & the author, & this closer connection fosters & strengthens the reader’s attitude & feelings to agree with the author.
By using facts, building credibility, addressing the counter-argument, addressing real world consequences, & proposing a solution, Gioia convinces the reader of her claim.
Things that I already know I need to work on:
Spend less time on planning (I spent about 7 minutes doing so), and more time on revising (didn’t do so because I ran out of time).
Use a wider variety of sentence structure.
Improve my language (I’m not a very good quick writer, so a lot of times my language appeared clunky and off).
I think I got a 4 in Reading, and a 3 on Analysis, and a 3 in Writing,
So in all, I gave myself a 7-8/5-6/6
What do you all think?