Please grade my essay :)

Test Preparation
1

<p>I did a practice test a couple of days ago and I thought I'd post up my essay to hear what you guys think. Please score it out of 6</p>

<p>Prompt:
We often hear that we can learn much about someone or something just by casual observation. We are not required to look beneath the surface or to question how something seems. In fact, we are urged to trust our impressions, often our first impressions, of how a person or a situation seems to be. Yet appearences can be misleading. what "seems" isn't always what is.</p>

<p>Is the way something seems to be not always the same as it actually is? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning bla bla bla...</p>

<p>Here is the essay:</p>

<p>Everyone has secrets. Everyone has truths. Everyone has outward appearances. Things are not always the way they seem they are. The only excuse for this is ignorance: there is always something that you don't know, cannot know, and may not ever know, which is why they are called secrets.</p>

<p>Often in movies, I see the main character being backstabbed by his own brother or very close friend, which advocates the phrase "things are not always the way they seem they are". In a recent movie called "Rush Hour 3" (I'm sure you have heard of it, if not seen it), chairman of the World Court turns out to be the head of the World's biggest criminal organization. Who would have suspected it?</p>

<p>When I was growing up, I would look at a Rolex and think, "It's only a watch, how expensive can it be?" only too soon to find out by looking at the price tag that it was $18,000. I was left speechless. Even if the watch was made fully of gold, it couldn't have been more than $1000. Only because of the branding was it so expensive. The watch was not the way it seemed to be.</p>

<p>That concept applies even to the world. Growing up, I saw the world a very peaceful, very happy place. But when I did finally grow up, I saw the world in it's true light: a completely unhappy, unpeaceful place. People dying in Iraq for reason-less causes, perhaps for one man's benefit. Wars raging in Darfur. I saw pictures and heard stories of war, murder, drugs, sex, slavery, destruction, all the negativity.</p>

<p>It was not the way I had imagined things. It was not the way the world seemed. The world had backstabbed me. Ranging from material goods to movies to reality, things are not always the way they seem they are. In fact, they rarely are.</p>

<p>Please give me your honest opinion out of 6. I gave myself a 3.</p>

<p>Thank You</p>

2

<p>I'll look at it in more detail later (so I won't give it a mark yet), but a good example to give that comes up is the movie "The Truman Show". It explains how humans rarely question their reality... You should take a look at it...</p>

<p>One other idea that pops up in your mentioning the war in darfur is representation and reality (i.e. With the media, including the news). We often believe or are influenced by the information we are presented it, and it is this representation that becomes a reality for us, without our questioning this representation. You could give the example of the movie "Wag the Dog". I don't know if you'd be going off topic talking about this one, but they're just some ideas I thought I might share.</p>

3

<p>thanks sci fri</p>

<p>only if i had thought of that stuff during the 25 mins :D ... sigh
but, yes, I do remember watching "The Truman Show".</p>

4

<p>You have too many short stubby sentences that are annoying to read >.< it's like you're trying to write a poem or something....?</p>

5

<p>Hmm.. Why did you give yourself a 3? </p>

<p>I probably would have given it a 3 as well. Discuss both sides of the argument. Make a real argument. Here's how I read your essay.</p>

<p>Rush Hour 3: Summarize it: A bad guy looks like a good guy.</p>

<p>Rolex: It didn't look as expensive as it was.</p>

<p>World: You thought it was peaceful, until you looked at another side of the world.</p>

<p>That's basically all you said! You need SUBSTANCE. Read the quote at the beginning. Think about what it's really saying: "We are not required to look beneath the surface or to question how something seems. In fact, we are urged to trust our impressions..." To be honest, I don't see how the answer to the question could possibly be No. I mean, I have a hunch that virtually every single person will say that the way something seems isn't always what it is. Read this section of the quote again: "In fact, we are urged to trust our impressions..." What happens when we are urged to trust our impressions? What is the effect? Can you think of how this could apply to society? Think about stereotypes and their impact on society. Can you make a thesis out of that? It would make so much more interesting an essay that actual shows real thought. Make a clear focus. Reread the last paragraph and the conclusion you wrote. You sound like you got carried away from your thesis. Look at the last sentence. "In fact, they rarely are." Do you prove that in your essay?</p>

<p>I still think the question is bad. But it can be written in a way so that it will be more interesting because it makes an interesting point and shows more of your personal thought.</p>

6

<p>Out of curiosity (because I've never actually done these essays before (I am yet to take the SAT), what would be the case if you were to talk about a controversial topic. For example, dchow08 was referring to the stereotypes in society. Would it be taken badly by the examiner if I were to talk about (for example) the generalization that people make of associating asians with terrorists. That's a bit of an extreme one, but I just wanted to give an example that stands out a lot (although I probably wouldn't use that one in the real exam). I'm just using that as an example, and I don't mean harm to anyone in using that example (I'm asian myself).</p>

<p>Would the examiner make me lose marks because for saying something that is not universally agreed with and may perhaps be taken personally by some?</p>

<p>Or perhaps if you refer to some sort of political idea that might be controversial?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

7

<ol>
<li> You don't go very in-depth and your point could be much more well-developed. Not bad for practice, though. :)</li>
</ol>

8

<p>sci fry, you never know who is goign to grade your essay and how they are going to perceive your essays. to be on the safe side, never talk about current politicians and political issues</p>

9

<p>Ok, I'll make sure to avoid it.</p>

10

<p>I'd give you a two or three, probably a three. You got some grammatical issues, and as someone else pointed out, 1) make your argument better by describing the examples in a little more detail and 2) some of your sentences are too short and repetitive. Make your introduction and conclusion sound very interesting. I can give people advise, yet when I'm in the testing room doing this myself, I'm freaking out.</p>

11

<p>If I were you I wouldn't use sex in your example of how the world is unhappy. To a grader this might come off as immature, and because these graders are human, they just might grade you down for something like this even though they shouldn't. Just my opinion. </p>

<p>I had this prompt when I took College Board's online prep and I got a 10/12 so here is my essay. You can compare. It's not that well written, but I gave examples to back up my view which is prob why I got the 10.</p>

<p>The way that something seems is not always the way that it actually is. As human beings it is natural to prejudge people and these first impressions are inevitable. As a matter of courtesy and even safety, we must look beyond our preconceptions and find out the truths about people and things.
With increasing intelligence in technology these days, the internet has become a useful yet potentially dangerous place. Internet chat rooms and instant messages, often used by teens and young adults, are used for many purposes such as talking to people with similar interests, meeting new friends and even finding potential love mates. Because of this, it is not uncommon for people to want to meet up with those who they meet online and sometimes the results can be disastrous.
These chat rooms are easy ways for internet predators to find potential victims. Many adults and teens alike are lied to by mysterious people on the web. These predators lie about their age and other things in order to entice their victims. In this case, people are not what the initially seemed to be. The whole strategy is for the internet predator is to create a false image to attract people to eventually meet. When people do meet with these predators, the rendezvous could lead to rape, kidnapping, or even death.
Although this is a drastic example of how things are not always how they appear, it is an all too common mistake made by many people.
It is true that in some cases you can find the truth about something just by appearance or first impressions, but as a precaution, it is always wise to search deeper and find out the truth before acting on impulse.</p>

12

<p>you could also talk about historic propaganda, like that used in wwII. for example, the US made the germans seem like the enemy, the germans made the Jews seem to be useless beings, etc...</p>