<p>Here is an essay I wrote while taking a practice exam. The question is: What motivates people to change?</p>
<p>Here is my answer:</p>
<p>The love that we have on other people or things like ideas, objects, or hobbies is what motivates us to change. I have seen this happen in my family. My father had an addiction for smoking, but then decided to completely stop smoking. The reason was specifically because he saw that his addiction was having a bad influence on us, and harming the relationship with my mother. His love for us made him change.</p>
<p>My love for the sport of soccer is a great example as well. Before I decided to completely emerge myself in the sport, I would do very little sport and spent my free-time watching tv shows or playing video games. However, now that i decided to be completely into soccer I run, work out, play soccer, and rarely play video games in my free-time. I chose to change my lifestyle to become better at soccer because I really love it.</p>
<p>In the book "That Hideous Strength" from C.S.Lewis, one of the main characters, Mark, decided to drop out from his dream job because it was separating him from his wife, Jane. The love for his wife was the cause of a change in his dreams. </p>
<p>From my personal experiences and literature i have read, I have come to the conclusion that love for people or things stimulates us to change our lives.</p>
<p>Thank you very much for checking my SAT Essay</p>
<p>I’d give it a 4. You do a good job of staying on topic and providing examples to support your thesis. A few comments:</p>
<p>Keep specific detailed examples out of your intro paragraph.
You have 3 examples and 2 are personal. I suggest limiting that to 1.
Word usage is poor, see if you can improve that. Examples:
The love that we have on other people - The love that we have for other people
an addiction for smoking - an addiction to smoking or a smoking addiction
Before I decided to completely emerge - immerse
Mark, decided to drop out from his dream job - Mark, decided to quit his dream job</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You haven’t answered the question.</p></li>
<li><p>What you do have here is superficial and trite.</p></li>
<li><p>This is just too short. It doesn’t need to be 500 words, but 250 (if it’s that long, which I doubt) isn’t enough, especially when you aren’t saying anything insightful or interesting.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The paper is a two because it doesn’t show that you’ve been prepared for college-level writing or thinking.</p>
<p>Jeremy is correct so I’ll just add that your essay needs more structure.
Uses TREES: Thesis/Reasons(Intro Paragraph), Example1(paragraph-tied to reasons), Example2(paragraph-tied to reasons), Example3(Paragraph-tied to reasons), Summary </p>
<p>Just having an intro paragraph delineated from your first example would help a lot. </p>
<p>Take a look at your second example- you love soccer. Great. But what specifically about it lead you to change your behavior. Maybe you had a goal of being first line. Or maybe you had the date of the big game against your rival circled on your calendar and every time you were tempted to slack off you though of it. You needed a Reason here.</p>