Please help me grade my essay. Thank you!

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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Can you help read my essay (a bit lengthy, sorry) and give me any suggestions/recommendations? Thank you for your time!

Topic: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sample-questions/essay/1

My essay:
Let there be dark! In our world, a world so dominated by technology and energy, darkness is being out shined. This major development, although not clearly expressed, will have detrimental effects on everything: from humans to a string of animals to even the arts. As a result of such effects, some solutions have been implemented. This claim is the one made by author, Paul Bogard. Bogard supports this claim by first introducing a general synopsis of his claim, that is then followed by specific evidence, compounded with the reasoning behind the usage of the evidence, and finally concluding with solutions to the problem at hand.
In the beginning of the passage, Bogard introduces a generalized synopsis. He does this by contrasting a reflection of his past – “I knew night skies in which meteors left smoky trails across sugary spreads of stars” – with one of the current state of matters – “But now, when 8 of 10 children born in the United States will never know a sky dark enough for the Milk Way.” Following this contrast he expresses the importance of this change, as he "worry we are rapidly losing night’s natural darkness before realizing its worth’ and he wants us to “also remember the irreplaceable value of darkness.” After this emphasis, Bogard provides more specific reasoning for why the reduction in darkness and increase in lighting is such a problem as “All life evolved to the steady rhythm of bright days and dark nights” and how “too little darkness … spells trouble for all.” This progressively increasing specificity with help to lead to the next paragraph which helps provides specific evidence from reputable sources that he uses to support his claim.
With the statement of his claim, Bogard then uses specific evidence to support his claims. He begins by stating the negative effects of increasing lighting (or decreasing darkness) on humans. He cites the World Health Organization and their classification of “the night shift as a probable human carcinogen” followed shortly by a similar citation of the American Medical Association that “voiced its unanimous support for light pollution reduction efforts at both national and state levels.” He then continues by stating how darkness is needed for sleep and sleep disorders can result in diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and depression. After he has finished providing evidence of the negative effects on humans, Bogard goes on to state the negative effects on animals. He states how “Ecological light pollution is like the bulldozer of the night…disrupting ecosystems sever billions years in the making” and, rather bluntly, that “Simply put, without darkness, Earth’s ecology would collapse.” These pieces of evidence, that show the negative effects on both humans and animals, goes to show the expansive range of the negative impacts of the increasing lighting as well as the importance of addressing this problem.
The author concludes his piece by stating a general overview of the progression of the problem today followed by solutions that have been implemented. One piece of his general overview is that “the amount of light in the sky increases an average of about 6% every year.” This is then followed with solutions to the problem such as how “Paris, the famed city of light, which already turns off its monument lighting after 1 a.m.”. This overview as well as the following solutions gives the reader a general yet powerful statement to take away from the article.

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First impression: it kind of seems like you basically summarized his essay into a couple paragraphs. Yes, you do have points such as “specific evidence,” but it seems like you’re describing how the argument is structured, rather than how he makes his argument. For example, your claims are synopsis, evidence, and conclusion with solutions. Synopsis–how does this help the author make the argument? You mentioned contrast, but it’s kind of disorganized (not in the thesis either). Contrast or juxtaposition would be good rhetoric tools the author used, but synopsis doesn’t really do much other than sum everything up for the reader. Evidence–this is a better point to bring up, but you could work on how you express it. You talk about how evidence is present in the passage, but how does the author utilize evidence to make his argument? Does it establish credibility, and does it make him sound like a more reasonable person? Does it put authority behind his statements? Conclusion–again, like synopsis, this is a very broad and vague point to make. Most every article will have a conclusion. It’s not really a unique tool that the author uses. What you could have built on is how the author created the “powerful statement” at the end; perhaps you could bring up appeal to emotion to state how the author’s powerful words invoke certain emotions in the reader (and specify which emotions).

Writing–there were a few convention errors, but not too many. I was able to read the meaning behind it. Maybe use a bit more distinctive vocabulary–otherwise, it sounds a little formulaic and not well thought out.

I would look at some of the sample essays that the College Board releases, and take a look at some of the rhetoric tools that those essays talk about. It’s the HOW that’s really important here, not the WHAT.

Hope this helped.

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Ok thank you for the awesome advice. I will definitely give the College Board releases a read.

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Agree with the previous poster, you seem to discuss the general structure and flow of the essay rather than how the essay makes its pivotal argument. You need to go even deeper into analysing the essay, and get technical with how you describe it. You spoke about how the author provides solutions for the problems he states - you could focus on this too, maybe. Why does this strengthen the author’s case? What effect does it have on the mind of the reader? These are the kind of questions you need to be asking.

Plus, I read through the essay prompt and noticed right away that it began with a personal anecdote - this is an emotional device that hooks the reader’s attention from the get go and makes them imagine themselves in the author’s shoes, thus humanising the argument before it is even stated. It’s the little things like that which go a long way - the SAT essay can be very formulaic if you just know how to go about it. Pick three or four devices at max, then explain the WHY it was used and HOW it affects the reader or beguiles them into agreeing with the author. Oh, and brush up on big ass words! Pepper them in every other paragraph strategically.

^ Sorry if that’s a bit of an overload, but yeah, good job with the essay otherwise!