Hi everyone,
Just did the practice test on collegeboard. They (I meant the e-rater) gave my essay a 10 but I’m skeptical about it. So I was wondering if there is any kind soul that can help me out?
It’s ok to be brutally honest. It helps me to improve. Thanks in advance.
Essay Prompt
Nowadays nothing is private: our culture has become too confessional and self-expressive. People think that to hide one’s thoughts or feelings is to pretend not to have those thoughts or feelings. They assume that honesty requires one to express every inclination and impulse.
Adapted from J. David Velleman, “The Genesis of Shame”
Assignment
Should people make more of an effort to keep some things private? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
It is important to understand what is private and what is not private. This will help us to understand the advantages and disadvantages of privacy. Then can we decide whether there is a need to keep things private. I believe that most people should make an effort, in fact, more than just effort to safeguard their privacy. They should be taking precautionary measures to prevent unauthorised access to their privacy.
I recalled an incident involving a hong kong celebrity during my secondary days. This hong kong celebrity, Edison Chen, is a playboy and kept his intimate photos with other female celebrities in his laptop, including nude ones. In this particular incident, Edison’s laptop malfunction and he sent it for repair. During the repair, the technician went astray and broke into Edison’s personal folders and found out about the intimate photos. The technician then uploaded these intimate photos on the internet. It is unknown what the technician’s intention was, but I believed he is seeking attention from this incident. Not only Edison was implicated in this incident, but also more than five female celebrities, many of which were famous ones such as Gillian Cheung.
This brings me to my next point about putting in precautionary measures on top of keeping things private. On my personal laptop, Like everyone else, I have my own personal things as well. However, unlike Edison, I do not take nor keep photos like his. Private things can be as complicated as Edison’s photos, or as simple as in the case of mine, my antivirus settings. Computer virus is everywhere on the internet. Without antivirus, we will be infected almost every time we access the internet. I uses Avast antivirus software to safeguard my computer from virus. My antivirus settings are different from everyone else, such as the number of times a scan takes place in a day. Besides that, in order to access the my antivirus settings, one will need a password that only I know. This is a simple precautionary measure on top of the usual privacy one expects to keep for their antivirus settings.
All in all, from the two example I have cited above, you can see that privacy is our own responsibility. In the case of Edison’s case, it is perhaps advisable for him not to store his intimate photos on the computer. Instead, he can store it in a external hard drive. This is a precautionary measure that he can take. To hide one’s private things is to pretend not to have it will not be a good solution as it still exists. Hence, taking precautionary measures will be a better solution.