please grade my sat essay

<p>The prompt followed along the lines of whether persistence is the key factor to success and talent, genius, and education are secondary factors.</p>

<p>Response:</p>

<p>Success is credited to talent, education, and intellect rather than persistence. While persistence can carry a person so far, talent, education, and intellect are the factors that achieve success. In the cases of the Enlightenment philosophers who had favorable factors to ensure success and blacks were denied opportunities to be prosperous, persistence has little effect on successful achievements.
In the 18th century in Europe, there was a blooming of scientific and rational thought. Many of these prominent intellects whose work formed the political ideals in our Constitution today were born into a wealthy family. Education had blessed them with the opportunity to reflect on past observations and conclude their own. For example, Copernicus disproved Ptolemy's idea of a geocentric theory where the Earth revolved the other planets, but a mere peasant would not have the resources to make such an outstanding astronomical assertion. Enlightenment philosophers were successful in spreading their ideas and throwing the old style of absolute monarchy out and replacing it with a more constitutional government. These philosophers fell into the category of the educated elite who had prosperous family backgrounds that enabled them to pursue a philosophical path. Poorer and less well off people or even women could not attain such highly regarded achievements because their opportunities were restricted.</p>

<p>The Enlightenment philosophers were endowed with privileges, resources, and wealth that allowed them to be successful. In contrast, during the Antebellum South, blacks had few rights and could not be successful. Forced into slavery, blacks had little to no prospects of climbing up the social ladder. Even though the talented slaves who worked in the cities as specialized laborers were less oppressed and relatively successful to the field hands, their wealth was paltry compared to the White Americans. Many African Americans were illiterate because the whits feared of a black threat overthrowing the system of labor they put so much reliance on. As a result, few blacks could aspire to become prominent individuals. Though the African American William Lloyd Garrison strongly refueled the Abolitionist movement, he was never truly successful in accomplishing his goals because it took extreme white support to abolish slavery. Without talent, education, and intellect, the prospect of becoming accomplished seems almost impossible.</p>

<p>Regarding the backgrounds of those who are successful, similarities include an education, talent, and intellect.</p>

<p>thank you!</p>

<p>Looks like the prompt was this:
“Is persistence more important than ability in determining a person’s success?”</p>

<p>You take the counter-intuitive con position. </p>

<p>Your first example, Enlightenment philosophers, is ok. You argue that people with ability were successful . Thats fine but the prompt was “MORE important than”. You should have shown that ability was more important for Copernicus than persistence- like maybe he made a couple of observations and then went fishing and had his assistants finish up. Women’s “opportunities were restricted” has nothing to do with your argument unless you show that their persistence was for naught and you made no attempt to. </p>

<p>The 18th century blacks example is a mess. You dont even mention anything about persistence. Maybe there was an argument to be made here if you had a specific example of a hard working black who was talented but unrecognized in his time, but then you still have the problem of the negative- if he didnt succeed how can you say which was MORE important? All the field hand and illiteracy stuff doesnt help your thesis at all. </p>

<p>The biggest problem is that your essay just ends- there is no real conclusion. The conclusion is supposed to restate your thesis and say that your examples prove it. </p>

<p>I’d say this is a 3. The logic is probably a 4 but the lack of a real conclusion is a problem.</p>

<p>4/6. Your argument seems contradictory to me. Is education really the same as intelligence and natural ability?</p>

<p>Thank you for the effective advice! :)</p>