<p>Prompt: Are people today generally too unaware of their good fortune?</p>
<p>Fortune has ultimately no correlation with happiness. Humans are intrinsically prone to ignore the gifts they have been given and instead focus on seeking what they lack. In fact, those less fortunate sometimes tend to experience greater happiness and appreciation than those with plenty. Throughout literature and even modern day America, many cases can be found that prove just how ignorant people are to their good fortunes.
In Charles Dicken's "Great Expectations," a poor boy named Pip is granted his childhood wish when an unknown benefactor gifts him a large fortune to become a "gentleman." Oip's life is transformed from one of struggle and misery to lavish and comfort. In addition, he erroneously realizes that with his new social standing, he may now persue his lifetime love, a girl named Estrella. However, as Pip soon discovers, even his new acquired wealth could not win her heart, and his life once again crumbled to misery. Furthermore, the corruption of wealth caused him to cease to enjoy the luxeries of his new life, and in effect, many fold richer, he was no better off than his childhood self.
Even in modern day society, Americans especially still share this same ignorance and appreciation. With everyone owning smartphones, computers, and cars, how could Americans feel anything but satisfaction? In reality, America's national happiness does not rank even 10th in the world. Leading the standings are countries significantly poorer, with less of the freedoms and rights Americans enjoy. As a result, it can be clearly seen that due to the natural ignorance humans have to their good fortunes, wealth does not bring happiness whatsoever.</p>
<p>It is fine, perhaps 8-9, but not superb. Your grammar is fine, but you use sentences and phrases that are awkward, wordy, and just not effective or aesthetically pleasing. I will point out a few things that need to be looked over, but before do that, here are three things that you need to improve: A sentence structure, main idea, and evidence. For example, “humans are prone to ignore the gifts that they have been given…” has three problems. First, it sounds awkward. Second, it doesn’t specify what the GIFTS are, and it confuses the reader. Third, the part that “they have been given…” is passive and not good in general, especially in this case. </p>
<p>Second, your main idea. Your intro paragraph absolutely doesn’t make sense and doesn’t really match up with the prompt given. Are you trying to say that fortune doesn’t matter in human life because humans value only the things that they don’t have? your incorrect use of the world “less fortunate” makes it confusing and highly ineffective.</p>
<p>Also, your logical fallacy. By stating that “because humans only want the things that they don’t have”, you’re saying that people are perpetually unhappy. This is not true and too extreme. This is not an effective thesis to be backed up. You could try, but you wouldn’t do much with it. If I were you, I would write the following intro paragraph:</p>
<p>Fortune has no correlation with happiness because what makes people happy is their positive attitude towards life, not how much fortune they have. Historically, there have been continued class disparities in which the poor were depicted as wretched and unhappy, while the rich were regarded as successful and care-free. This cultural perception of happiness as a result of one’s wealth, however, is a wrong and overly generalizing concept that has no ground whatsoever. </p>
<p>Here is a breakdown of what I did.
I stated what I think of the prompt, which is the thesis.
I then embellished it (as a hook) with a general, broad idea.
And then I REFUTED it, while STRENGTHENING my thesis by reiterating it and using the emphasizing word “whatsoever”. I wouldn’t do it for my other essays, but for the SAT writing, they don’t care about your opinions or extremeness as long as you show that you can write with eloquence and logical consistency, without any grammar error.</p>
<p>And then I would add a few examples:
How people can be happy with lack of fortune (antithesis)
How people can be unhappy with plenty of fortune (reverse)
Conclusion – People’s attitudes, not their wealth, matter. (Reiterate once again – decorate it with some strong example) </p>
<p>Of course you can throw a couple good literary, historical, and personal examples in there to make it a 5 paragraph essay. The best thing for you to do is to have a clear idea of what you’re about to write and to express it in the most concise manner possible.</p>
<p>One of the things my lit teacher has taught me to do is to avoid using linking verbs
I.E.</p>
<p>Students are wretched creatures who have no life =X </p>
<p>Students, wretched as they are, have no life =O
Students are wretched because they have no life= O</p>
<p>There’s no need to embellish the word “students” and connect it with the linking verb, “are”. Make it as concise as possible.</p>
<p>Also, don’t use the passive tense too much.</p>
<p>Which one is better?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>However, passive forms can be effectively used on occasions like the following:
Surrounded by an imaginative coterie of novel-winning economists, I fancied myself to win the Novel Prize someday. </p>
<p>But it is conventional wisdom that unless you want to emphasize the passive relationship, you will ALWAYS benefit by not using it.</p>
<p>If you have any questions go ahead and I’ll be glad to help anyone improve their English skills because teaching is another form of learning and I’m frankly doing it for my self-interest.</p>
<p>*By the way, don’t be afraid of being a slow reader/writer: I took an hour to write this, but as long as you have clear ideas on a topic and you can clearly express them in written language, there’s no obstacle in improving your English skills. People are born to be effective, and as long as you keep practicing you’ll cut down the time it requires to think and write.</p>
<p>You write quite well. Excellent use of examples. Need a conclusion though, yes?</p>
<p>Myself, I’m not clear on how the SAT graders rate “personal experience” within an essay. In some of my prep books, they swear it’s vital. In another book I have, however, the author says never to use it. </p>
<p>I’d like to hear what others think on this point.</p>
<p>Personal experience in the SAT essay section is okay as long as it serves its purpose. There is no rule whatsoever that you will get points off for using your personal example. In fact, when you don’t have adequate amount of examples, it is even recommended that you make up one in your life. </p>
<p>What most people who advise against are concerned about, I think, is the fact that personal examples often are too personal or too divergent. But as long as it serves its purpose, like I said, it should be fine.</p>
<p>For instance, for an essay prompt asking for relationship between hard work and success, I would not only cite famous successful, hardworking historical figures like Franklin and Carnegie, but also would add how my uncle, who is supposedly extremely hard working, managed to succeed in his industry because of his hard work.</p>
<p>my first sentence for my essay is always my exact position, yes or no. then i tell a story and in my last 2 paragraphs of 5 i relate it to the theme. Hopefully i get a 10 or 11 it would help a lot.</p>
<p>This is what always aggravates me about this website. They would NOT give you an 8-9. You would score much higher; 10-12 possibly. I wrote such a crap essay and scored a 12. So many of my friends did the same and scored 10+ as well. They aren’t looking for a full polished essay., they know it’s not going to be perfect. They’re looking for an essay that formulates a position and makes sense. Please don’t stress too much over the essay; if you write as well as you did with the essay you posted here as the essay you will write on SAT day - you’ll score well above 10. :)</p>
<p>Wow really? I was just reading over my essay again and I now see some elements I could easily have done better on. But if what you said is true, and I might actually be given a 10-12, I’ve been completely misled. Do you by any chance have previously scored “crap essays” that have recieved high scores? But CC does tend to score lower than the actual college board</p>
<p>@ogok2010 thanks for the advise, I definitely see the ambiguity in my intro paragraph. I’ll try to keep these things in mind as I write next time.</p>
<p>I agree with Ahsans. Not only this website, but practically everyone without actual knowledge of how College Board grades essays, judges peer essays much more critically than what it would actually earn on the SAT and AP tests. I was guilty of this myself–in my AP English class, one day we graded sample essays on an AP scale (0-9) and it wasn’t uncommon for the class and me to vote on a score of 5, when the essay actually generated a score of 9.</p>
<p>Personally, on the last SAT I got a 12 on my essay, and I used examples on the borderline of not being relevant at all to the topic of the problem. Studies have been conducted, and they show that writing more lengthy essays and using bombastic and pompous vocabulary can substantially increase your score. Perhaps it was my filling up of both pages that got me that score.</p>
<p>As for the score of your sample essay, it can easily garner a 10. I would include a conclusion though, even if it’s just as brief as “Analysis of ___ and ___ shows that fortune has no correlation with happiness… (insert some universal truth to strongly end your essay)” which is the format that I used.</p>
<p>@allenplay Thanks a lot for your input. if what you and Ahsans96 say is true then I’ve been mislead this whole time. I guess I actually have a shot at 11-12 then haha. It seems to me that contrary to popular belief, college board graders emphasize superficial qualities such as length, vocabulary, and structure more than in-depth analysis and writing skill? I’ll be sure to keep that in mind!</p>