Please grade my SAT essay!

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Assignment: What must we do to truly understand ourselves?</p>

<p>This was written in a timed setting -- I would very much appreciate a truthful answer, preferably with constructive criticism. Thanks =)</p>

<p>The nature of understanding is a complex dance. While we believe we understand ourselves throughout the entirety of our lives, we believe what is fallacy. To truly understand ones, one must follow a dogmatic procedure noted in “The Catcher in the Rye” by JD Salinger and “The Great Gatsby” by F Scott Fitzgerald. In addition, this can be exemplified in the social science of psychology.</p>

<pre><code>In “The Catcher in the Rye”, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, ultimately finds and understand himself. He engages in a solo tour and journey of Manhattan, aimlessly searching for nothing. Along his journey, he realizes more about himself than he has ever realized before. He finds out the truth in his personality, and the “phoniness” in other’s personalities. The young, rebellious Caulfield begins to finally understand himself and his actions. He establishes a mindset that will most likely stay with him for the rest of his life – the idea that he wants to be a “catcher in the rye”, metaphorically catching, or stopping children from becoming evil, “phony” adults. Holden’s adventure shows one procedure of garnering understanding of one’s self; beginning a journey, preferably on one’s own.

Furthermore, the requirement to solve a dilemma can have a side effect of finding one’s self, as illustrated in the novel entitled “The Great Gatsby.” In the novel, Daisy, one of protagonists, is torn between two lovers, both of whom are mutually infatuated with her. Consequently, she is forced to choose between two lovers. To do this, she must realize what she wants in life and how she wants to obtain it. In this process, she begins to understand her motives, her drives, her personality, and her cognition.

Lastly, a specific field of psychology, psychoanalysis, attempts to find people’s true selves and their true emotions. The brain child of Sigmund Freud, this specific school of psychology relies heavily on the unconscious mind and on dream analysis. Freud believed that dreams show one’s repressed, raw emotions and feelings. With psychoanalysis, a psychology could, theoretically, find a person’s true self by analyzing their dreams. Consequently, the patient would be inclined to understand his unaltered emotions and unaltered self. They would realize what they think unconsciously; they would realize what they think, without fallacy.

Ultimately, we can prescribe a plethora of methods for ourselves to quell the sickness that is to understand ourselves. To truly understand ourselves, we can engage in a number of activities. These are exemplified in the rebellious novel entitled “The Catcher in the Rye” and the progressive novel entitled “The Great Gatsby”, written by JD Salinger and F Scott Fitzgerald, respectively. In addition, we can truly understand ourselves through a school of psychology named psychoanalysis, created by Sigmund Freud.
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2

<p>4/6</p>

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<p>Do you mean oneself rather than ones?</p>

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<p>Try to use stronger language. Say “only through his journey”</p>

<p>The second body paragraph was weak. Add more details on what she learned (I read the book, and I didn’t think Daisy of a static character, but if you thought she grew through the story, tell what she learned).</p>

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<p>Do you mean psychologist?</p>

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Wrong use of semicolon. The string of words following the semicolon has to be an independent clause.</p>

<p>Lastly, you have awkward sentences through out the essay.</p>

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3

<p>Thanks for the feedback. The grammar and spelling errors weren’t there originally. After I hand-wrote it, I typed it out without rereading what I typed.</p>

4

<p>3/6.</p>

<p>I still have no clue what your thesis is. Generally SAT essays involve a yes/no + reasoning, and I don’t see that. You reference a “dogmatic procedure,” which suggests to me that you’re arguing one must utilize only an established set of principles in order to understand oneself. I can see how your first example supports this (sort of), but your second example doesn’t really make sense with respect to your thesis (in fact, I’d argue that Daisy has no real principles to begin with). And Freudian psychology isn’t all that relevant to your thesis either; psychoanalysis is notoriously subjective, mostly revolving around Freud saying “Yeah, it works how I say it works” (e.g. dream analysis). Also, your thesis is broken up into two sentences, which is terrible for every teacher I’ve ever had.</p>

<p>You also make redundant / unnecessarily complex statements a number of times. For example:</p>

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<p>There’s also a couple awkward word usages, but brownman has covered a number of them already. Otherwise it looks solid.</p>

<p>I’d work on thesis statements / organization and brevity if I were you. Good luck!</p>

5

<p>4/6 try to connect your essay topics better and use better diction</p>

6

<p>I’m a bit new to the SAT essay grading procedure, but I’m fairly certain that this essay wouldn’t score higher than a 4/6. I had trouble finding a thesis, and there were several grammatical errors. </p>

<p>In addition, some of the words you use seem sophisticated, but they don’t really fit the situation. Take these sentences that you wrote:</p>

<p>“Ultimately, we can prescribe a plethora of methods for ourselves to quell the sickness that is to understand ourselves. To truly understand ourselves, we can engage in a number of activities.”</p>

<p>These sentences are a bit redundant (second sentence) and unclear (first sentence). As far as I know, using big words like “plethora” and “quell” in redundant and unclear sentences makes the grader feel as if you’re using those words solely to impress and not to add meaning to the essay. The grader will most likely mark you down for that.</p>

7

<p>

The essay prompt given wasn’t a yes or no question.</p>

<p>I would additionally recommend telling just one way to know oneself better. You say go on adventures, face difficult situations, and use dreams. Instead, pick one way to know oneself better and do 2 examples of it.</p>

8

<p>I don’t see the prompt anywhere, so I had to infer it from the essay. What is it?</p>

9

<p>Thanks for the feedback. Every little bit of criticism helps! If anyone has nothing better to do, I have another essay in need of grading :).</p>

<p>Assignment: Do you think that ease does not challenge us and that we need adversity to help us discover who we are?</p>

<p>“What does’t hurt us makes us stronger.” Adversity helps one to became an adept at understanding oneself. It is a complex dance. Generally, with great challenge comes great reward, especially intrinsic rewards. “The Chocolate War” and “The Catcher in the Rye”, written by Robert Cormier and JD Salinger, respectively, exemplify the necessity of challenge to garner an understanding of one’s self.</p>

<p>Jerry, the protagonist of “The Chocolate War”, is challenged by conformity. Given an “assignment”, a task that one must complete, by a school organization known as The Vigils, Jerry must refuse to participate in the annual chocolate sale. He becomes the elephant in the crowd. On a daily basis, he is teased, bullied, and humiliated for being a nonconformist. He dares to question the universe. However, by refusing to conform even after his assignment expires, Jerry realizes that he would rather be a leader than a follower - a predictive moral.</p>

<p>Furthermore, the question of adversity’s affect on aiding one to understand who he or she is can be illustrated in JD Salinger’s novel entitled “The Catcher in the Rye.” The novel tells the story of the protagonist’s arduous journey throughout the city of New York. A teenager, he is forced to challenge his cognition by trekking throughout the city for a weekend, questioning the phoniness of everyone who he encounters. Meanwhile, he fails to recognize himself as the greatest “phony” among everyone else. As the adventure progresses and challenges are faced, the protagonist realizes that he only desires to be a catcher in the rye; he wishes to save children from the conflagrated hellfire of adulthood. As a result of his journey, he finally understands his ideas, his emotions, and his goals. </p>

<p>Ultimately, adversity is the fuel that we need to ignite the discovery of ourselves. Without challenge, there would be no ambition to understand - no changes would be made to require us to understand our perspectives. The role of adversity in the discovery of ourselves and who we are is illustrates in JD Salinger’s novel, “The Catcher in the Rye”, as well as Robert Cormier’s novel entitled “The Chocolate War.”</p>

10

<p>There’s definite improvement there, but your word choice / syntax remains rather awkward.
Your first quote is misquoted. Isn’t it, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” ?
Your thesis remains a little awkward, but it’s at least clear.</p>

<p>Some awkward areas:

Try demonstrate how challenges help us understand ourselves or something along those lines. I don’t know what the exact term is for what you’re doing, but all those prepositions make it sound odd.

The parenthetical statement is redundant, and the dependent clause doesn’t lead into the independent clause in a way that makes a lot of sense to me. (Again, I don’t know the formal term for this…sorry).

Cognition is used incorrectly, and the sentence as a whole sounds awkward to me.

…yeah.</p>

<p>Otherwise your organization / direction is much more direct. Personally I like to use a variation of my thesis as the topic sentence of my concluding paragraph (that’s how I’ve been taught, at least), but that’s mostly opinion I think.</p>

<p>But see how your first essay never actually answered the prompt? That’s what’s important to keep in mind.</p>

11

<p>Try not stick to “Furthermore… Lastly…Ultimately” form.</p>

12

<p>One more essay :). Thanks to anyone who reads and/or grades this one, as well as the last two!</p>

<p>Prompt: Traditionally the term “heroism” has been applied to those who have braved physical danger to defend a cause or to protect others. But one of the most feared dangers people face is that of disapproval by their family, peers, or community. Sometimes acting courageously requires someone to speak out at the risk of such rejection. We should consider those who do so true heroes.</p>

<p>ASSIGNMENT: Should heroes be defined as people who say what they think when we ourselves lack the courage to say it?</p>

<p>Heroism is a complex dance. A hero is often one that voices his or her opinions with extreme courage. However, some argue that a hero is simply one who braves the universe and faces physical danger. Without doubt, a hero can be either one of said definitions, as proven by the actions of South Carolina throughout its history, as well as by Jerry of Robert Cormier’s “The Chocolate War.”</p>

<p>South Carolina has forced itself to voice its opinions throughout America’s young history. It began the Nullification Crisis in 1828 when John C. Calhoun, former Vice President, anonymously published his document entitled “The South Carolina Exposition and Protest.” He stated that if a federal tariff whose sobriquet was “The Tariff of Abominations” would not be repealed, South Carolina would secede from the Union. This statement summed up the South’s ideas and compounded them into one document. For this, South Carolina became the hero of the South. They merely voiced their concerns and directed them towards Washington.</p>

<p>Soon enough, South Carolina found another opportunity to state its opinion, having the effrontery to do so after its last “rebellion” against its own federation. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the 16th President-Elect of the United States. South Carolina strongly disagreed with his intended motives, prematurely concluding that his actions would be detrimental to the South’s well-being. Almost immediately, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union. Soon after, the other Southern states joined South Carolina in its cause, making the “rebellious state” a hero. </p>

<p>While “heroism” can be defined as having the courage to stand up and voice one’s beliefs, it can also be defined as facing physical danger to defend a cause. In Robert Cormier’s novel entitled “The Chocolate War”, the protagonist, a high school student named Jerry, chooses to be a nonconformist. He refuses to engage in an annual chocolate sale, an unfathomable act in his society. However, the consequences were not as trivial as his protest. By refusing to conform to society, Jerry became the target of much torment. He was frequently physically abused and was often the subject of much humility and bullying. </p>

<p>Ultimately, “heroism” has no single definition. One important question arises: can one become a hero without risking physical danger? With any refusal to conform to the status quo, one would be put in the cradle of physical danger. It is extremely rare to find someone who stands up against the status quo and finds himself out of harm’s way. However, the difference in defining a hero lies in the manifestation of physical danger; one can define a hero as one who has voiced his or her opinion with the risk of harm and one who voices his or her concerns with the consequence ultimately becoming physical harm.</p>

13

<p>Wow don’t listen to anyone on this thread, (of course you’ll have grammar mistakes and awkward wording). I’ve taken the SAT twice and scored a 10 on the first and a 11 on the second. Your two essays are by far better than mine. Just remember to fill up the two pages and you are guaranteed a 10.</p>