Please Grade Essay!

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1

<p>Prompt: Is making a bad decision better than making no decision at all?</p>

<p>Essay:
In our everyday lives, we are all faced with the responsibility of making decisions. We always fear whether our decisions would turn out the way we planned them to. Although making bad decisions may not seem to always have positive outcomes, making bad decisions are better than no decision at all. Even bad decisions can teach us something of value. In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, he introduces a character whose bad decisions early on led him to success in the latter. Not only in this literary piece do decisions play an important role but also in Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Illyich. In this novel, Tolstoy portrays a character who had not made any decisions of his own throughout his life; therefore, leading him to not have a successful life. Let us now take a look where a bad decision at first, actually resulted in becoming something positive in the end.
In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Jean Valjean is portrayed as a character whose bad decisions led him to eventual success. Early in his life, Jean Valjean was found guilty of theft. Jean Valjean was sentenced to prison, but after his escape a few years later had an epiphany. Jean Valjean now, with the help of his peers, was able to change the lives of those closest to him for the better. Although Jean Valjean had committed a theft, a remarkably bad decision, he had a successful life in the latter. Without making that bad decision and learning from it, Jean Valjean would have never helped so many.
The story of Jean Valjean presents us with a literary example where decisions are made, opposite to this is the story of Ivan Illyich where he had made absolutely no decisions throughout his life. In Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Illyich, Ivan Illyich is a character who never makes any decisions of his own throughout his life. Ivan always follows what others are doing in society- never committing to decisions on his own. Thus Ivan Illyich having made absolutely no decisions on his own, is faced with no success in his life. Ivan Illyich never had the chance to even learn from any of his mistakes throughout his life, he had always been chained down by what society expected from him. Making any decisions in Ivan's life would have resulted in some form of positive gain, whether it be the outcome of his decisions or having to learn from his mistakes.
All in all, even bad decisions are much more powerful than no decisions at all. Bad decisions may not always have positive results, but always can teach us something valuable. In the stories of Jean Valjean, his bad decisions proved to be something positive while on the other hand, in the story of Ivan Illyich, his inaction led him nowhere. </p>

<p>Time Given: 25 minutes</p>

<p>Thank You</p>

2

<p>10/12</p>

<p>For the whole essay, you argue the question and you argue your thesis really well. Those examples are really good and instead of having two examples that show why bad decisions are better, you put one example in that shows the effects of not making a decision at all which was really creative and it really helped the essay. Your problem isn’t at all in the structure or the thesis or the argument, your problems are fixable and are only minor.</p>

<p>Firstly, you have a few sentence fragments. ‘Not in in this literary piece do decisions play animportant role but also in Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illyich’. That’s a fragment and an incorrect sentence, read it yourself and you’ll see. Secondly, you have a subject verb disagreements such as ‘making bad decisions are better than no decision at all’. The subject is ‘making’ not bad decisions so it should be ‘it’ instead of ‘are’. Thirdly, you have unclear pronoun references. ‘In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, he introduces…’. He doesn’t refer to anyone because you never say who ‘he’ is (even though it’s obvious that it’s Hugo). Only use he once you’ve made it clear who the ‘he’ is. It wasn’t as bad in that sentence as it could have been, but make sure you always reference your pronouns properly.</p>

<p>On a side note, don’t ever say ‘Let us now take a look’. Just skip to the first paragraph and say, ‘In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Jean Valjean is potrayed as a character whose bad decisions led him to eventual success’.</p>

<p>Your vocabulary was good but it wasn’t great. A few tips: in an essay, don’t ever say bad. If you want to say bad, think of the thousands of other words that could replace it and make your essay sound much better.</p>

3

<p>thanks for your help, but more help is appreciated!</p>

4

<p>thanks for your help, but more help is appreciated!</p>