Please help me grade the subjective part of my practice test! :)

<p>(The essay.)</p>

<p>Prompt: Is creativity needed more than ever in the world today?</p>

<p>Creativity is an admirable trait useful in a variety of circumstances and needed more than ever in the world today. We have our most basic problems in the United States generally understood, and now we need to comprehend more complex problems and imagine fresh, creative solutions. Our ailing economy suffers from a dearth of new ways of thinking. Creativity is a quality that is more important today than ever before.</p>

<p>The United States has had the same president for the past eight years. We have had an old war revived and our economy progressively decline. In the upcoming presidential election, the American public is looking at all of the issues and, most significantly, looking at which candidate would provide much-ailed for change. Both campaigns have emphasized that their respective candidates would be agents of change, deliverers of fresh ideas, and the bearers of creative minds. Creativity is seen as necessary to secure innovation and save our depreciating economy.</p>

<p>Creativity solves problems. It has already done so in the past, as seen in Stephen Levitt's Freakonomics[u/]. One predicament described in his book is that of the Chicago school district. Teachers were cheating on standardized tests to make themselves appear to be better teachers than they actually were. The dilemma was that schools that needed help would be unidentifiable due to artificially high test scores. Stephen Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago, thought of an innovative way to discern who the cheating teachers were. Without his creativity, the Chicago school district would be rampant with cheating today.</p>

<p>In a recent issue of Time Magazine, Bill Gates published an article about the need for creativity. He acknowledges, in the article, that capitalism has not mitigated the pecuniary qualms of many people and details how a new concept, "creative capitalism," will alleviate the economy disparity between the affluent and the indigent. Gates asserts that creativity will turn the "losers" created by the market into "winners."</p>

<p>Creativity has solved problems in the past, such as the situation in the Chicago school district, and will solve problems that we have in contemporary times, such as the devalued economy and the inequality of capitalism. Creativity is needed today more than ever not only in our leaders, but in ourselves as well.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for your help, guys. :)</p>

<p>Whoops! Please pretend that "Freakonomics" is underlined! :p</p>

<p>10-11/12 I think.</p>

<p>Examples are pretty good, if a little underdeveloped [i.e. the second example, you just mention that Levitt thought of a "creative solution"]. Some small grammar errors here and there, which may be typos [our economy progressively decline] but those shouldn't matter very much. Your vocabulary at times seems a bit forced, but it's pretty clear you know how to use it, which may be all CB cares about.</p>

<p>Overall IMO the biggest weakness of your essay is the elaboration on examples. I think it would have been better to really develop 2 bits of evidence than kind of cover 3. </p>

<p>Still quite good, and the SAT standards are usually not very high.</p>

<p>Thanks for the advice. :) I tried to write with an SAT-slant (i.e. write more rather than better).</p>

<p>Hi CC Lurker,</p>

<p>I would give this essay a 9. It's a solid essay but with some minor issues. Here's a quick overview of what you did well and what you might want to work on in the future:</p>

<p>Did well:
+You tailored your essay to the prompt. The prompt asked if creativity was needed TODAY, and you used recent, current examples rather than the conventional formula of historical/literal examples.
+Your examples demonstrate a solid understanding of current events and give the impression of a very knowledgeable individual.
+Some good vocabulary use (dearth, alleviate, affluent).</p>

<p>Could work on:
-Your sentence structures are a bit repetitive. Try to mix in more compound-complex and complex sentences for a smoother flow and a more sophisticated style of writing.
-Your examples weren't fully developed. The first example could have had more specific details about the current state of the American economy (ie naming high oil prices, subprime crisis, etc.). The second example didn't specify what his "creative solution" was and that greatly decreased the impact.
-Your examples didn't fully connect to the prompt...This is sort of hard to explain but you almost had two theses: one stating that creativity is needed in the world today (answers the prompt) and one stating that creativity has the capability to solve problems (doesn't answer the prompt). I understand you were trying to get at a thesis of creativity has the capability of solving today's problems (of which there are many) but the connection wasn't made clear/explicit enough. </p>

<p>Hope this helps,
Richard</p>