Please grade my essay....

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>please grade my practice test essay:</p>

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<p>PROMPT: What motivates people to change?</p>

<pre><code> "People always change" is a common expression heard time and again. However, the reasons for this are less obvious. Since the dawn of time, man has continually driven himself at reform. In literature, characters are usually dynamic. In history, men have always been motivated to change. I have undergone the phases of reform countless times as well. Men are motivated to change because they constantly seek better conditions and an easier lifestyle.

In the book Animal Farm by George Orwell, the pig Napoleon repeatedly announces "decrees" which promote his well-being. For example, one of the decrees grants Napoleon the right to sleep in a bed, while the other animals must rest in decrepit stalls, disclosing man's innate motivation to change: their desire for an easier state of life.

Several paradigms of man's urge to reform occur in history as well. For example, King Louis and Queen Marie-Antoinette of pre-revolution France passed a slew of laws which made their lives all the more luxiorious. Marie Antoinette was a complete spendthrift; laws allowed her to deplete the treasury as she desired. King Louis was a voracious eater and laws permitted him to eat as much as he desired whilst the rest of France starved. King Louis and Marie-Antoinette passed laws which guaranteed them a superior and larger-than-life way of living. These examples again outline man's inclination towards change: his vicious goal of gaining a better life.

In my life, I have reformed countless times. When I had sports after school last year, I would walk home everyday after practice. Eventually, I learned to take the bus, breaking my habit of walking. To attain an easier life, I changed myself. This demonstrates man's tendency to change -- his burning lust for a toil-free and less arduous rhythm of life.
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<p>Although your writing style is nice and clear, and your choice of words is focussed with good-quality vocabulary, I'd have to give your essay an 8 out of 12, at best. In other words, with two scorers, each able to mark 1-6, I'm figuring both would give you a 4. Maybe one would call it a 3 because of so many logical disappointments, as follows:</p>

<p>You thesis, that is the claim you set up in Paragraph 1 to prove, is good but you never prove it in the rest of the essay. That is a score-killing fault. </p>

<p>You set forward your thesis in Para #1, in the first two and final sentences. (Everything in between them is filler.) Try reading just those 3 sentences and understand that they could serve as your opening para. It would be much clearer.</p>

<p>So now you have to prove: "Men are motivated to change because they constantly seek better conditions and an easier lifestyle." All 3 of your examples discuss how the characters/people "seek better conditions and an easier lifestyle" but you do not describe ANY CHANGE within them. Merely declaring something (Pig Napoleon in Animal Farm) isn't changing! Louis and Marie are fat and lazy throughout your paragraph; you didn't describe an "arc" of change, where they are one thing at the beginning of your retell but morphed into something different by the end. Your bus story doesn't describe a change of heart, change of direction, change of goal...you just stopped walking. That's not what your thesis set up the reader to hear.</p>

<p>There is also no concluding sentence or paragraph, which is necessary if you have the time to complete your essay. (If you run out of time, BTW, the conclusion is the place to cut a corner. Don't cut the opening or meat of the essay.) The conclusion should restate your thesis but in different words. By the time the reader gets to your conclusion, s/he should be very convinced of your thesis. YES! YES! That's the main, most important, absolutely proven reason why people change...to make their life easier. </p>

<p>If you were to figure out how Napoleon CHANGED during the course of the novel, you'd have something. I don't know enough history sitting here, but I'm thinking that perhaps Marie and Louis "changed" in that they became more isolated, hostile, and clueless about their peoples' conditions as the revolution wore on. You might have changed by deteriorating from a robust, vibrant go-getter at the beginning of the year to a depressed student, 30 pounds heavier, by the end of the year (I hope not.) But that would be living up to your promised thesis: to describe CHANGE and then explain WHY PEOPLE CHANGE, which you contend is because they're looking for ease. You only described the ease.</p>

<p>If time is short, it's better to delve more deeply into your first 2 examples and just leave off the last one, for it is really pedantic (no pun intended).</p>

<p>The best thing going for you is your writing style. Now work on making a dynamic, logical, compelling argument that stands up and proves your opening thesis.</p>

<p>Good luck. Try again. You'll get better with practice. </p>

<p>I worry more about people with no writing style than I do about you. But you can get higher than an 8. If you can write that well, you can challenge yourself to think more deeply. Work it!!!!!</p>

3

<p>Thanks, tuitions!</p>

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<p>It helps to see what the SAT scorers think is a terrible, okay and great essay. </p>

<p>To see a range of examples, all graded 1-6, see this collegeboard link. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the sample essays.</p>

<p>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>