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Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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Hi everyone, I am trying to get better at writing SAT essays, and it would be awesome if some of you guys could help me by providing some remarks.
(Please note that, being under the time pressure, I chose to say whatever came to my mind and so if you leave remarks, please ignore the ideas and opinions I give in the essay, cause it’s not exactly what I would say if I had more time to write)
So here is one essay :
Prompt : Is it more important to do work that one finds fulfilling or work that pays well?

Essay :

Spending your life working at a job you do not find fulfilling is like killing a part of yourself. Indeed, by choosing a good pay over work you enjoy makes you lose your sense of purpose and drive. If we look at history, we realize that full dedication to work often results in extraordinary outcomes : we’ll see how Nikola Tesla was a very telling example. Finally, we’ll see how artists, who choose fulfilling careers over steady jobs, are crucial to society.

When someone chooses safety and money over passion, one kills a part of one’s self : a person is at first full of dreams and expectations, but a passionate violin player settling for a career in finance sets aside his true interest. He therefore loses his sense of purpose, his drive : his work will not be motivated by desire to achieve something but by money. Thus, the worker’s attention to detail will slowly disappear. Moreover, he will never reach his maximum potential happiness and he eventually will do damage, due to his negligence.

On the contrary, when one is motivated to get up every morning to work, great things are achieved : Nikola Tesla, the famous engineer, perfectly illustrates this idea. His work, spanning the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, has brought a multitude of great inventions to the world. Completely dedicated to work, he never put more attention on money than on his work : as a result, although he could have been rich from his first inventions, he kept working.

Another example that shows the importance of choosing a fulfilling job is artists. In a society that values, for instance, engineers, lawyers and doctors more, being an artist is a difficult job : aside from a few “breakthrough” artists, the celebrities you hear about in television, most artists struggle to make consistent money. However, instead of putting their passion aside, they choose it over comfortable life. This choice is crucial not only to the artist himself, but also to society, which greatly benefits from artists, as they shape the world we know today.

Those three examples attest of the importance of choosing fulfilling jobs : caring too much about the money makes you forget to care about the actual job. Moreover, history shows what can happen when working is a result of motivation and passion : we witnessed the achievements of Nikola Tesla and the importance of artists. Now, one might wonder if it realistic to imagine a world where people only take on fulfilling jobs : who will be in charge of, say, the boring paperwork ? Well, the current advances in artificial intelligence may delete a lot of repetitive jobs, leaving people to look for something unique to do, something they, hopefully, enjoy.

Thank you !

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At most 8/12 if the readers are feeling generous. As soon as I saw the words “on the contrary”, you lost big points for that. Take ONE SINGLE side. Don’t waver back and forth or address rebuttals. Also, your examples aren’t really “examples”, they are more generalizations. Read some books, study some history, get some SOLID examples that will help you get your point across to the reader. Your only good example is your second body, which addresses a solid and concrete historical example. Another tip, to cut time and frustration, make your essay four paragraphs long, with an intro, 2 bodies with separate concrete examples for each, and a short conclusion. Don’t ask rhetorical questions. Make your points solid, as if you know 100% that something is true/going to be achieved. Your intro and conclusions are 3 sentences at most (I don’t think you can fit your entire essay into the space provided during the test tbh) and your conclusion is merely a short reflection of what you have talked about and a restatement of your thesis. Nothing more. No new ideas. Just wrap up what you have already said.

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Hi,

Thanks for the comments, I’ll try to follow your advice!
I just wanted to clarify something about “on the contrary”, I wasn’t introducing the opposite thesis, I was continuing the previous paragraph, sort of like saying “he will never reach his maximum potential happiness and he eventually will do damage, due to his negligence. On the contrary (as in : here’s what happens when he is not working for money).” But you’re right, it looks like I’m saying something else.

For the examples, are there any books you would recommend, or any list of useful reusable examples ?
Thanks!

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@SelimSamir Usually, I use Flowers for Algernon, Nectar in a Sieve, The Hunger Games (yes. actually), and The Kite Runner. My historical examples are just things that I draw from post-war American culture like the uber-liberal supreme court cases of the 60’s. My friend has told me that Malala Yousafzi works well as an example too. Good luck.

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So I wrote another essay, where I tried to follow some of @michelle426 's instructions :

Prompt : Do people discover more by exploring the unfamiliar or by examining the familiar?

Essay :

We can learn much more by exploring the unfamiliar, than by examining the familiar. We can find proof of this throughout history : from Henry Ford’s innovations in the car industry to Galileo’s discoveries based on observing the stars and planets to, more recently, the landing of the Philae spacecraft on a comet.

One of the most famous quotes in innovation is Henry Ford’s remark on horses and cars. He noted that if he had asked his customers for what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses. But instead of staying in the realm of the familiar, Ford decided to try his luck at commercializing a new machine : the Car. The risk he took by going in unfamiliar territory eventually paid off, revolutionizing the world, as well as his bank account.

Another example that shows how many discoveries occur in the unfamiliar, is Galileo’s work in the observation of the stars and the planets. In the 16th century people believed the earth was the center of the universe, around which orbited the sun and all the others planets. By using telescopes, Galileo delved into an unfamiliar world for the scientists of his time, shedding new lights on the place of the earth in the solar system.

Even today, where there’s so much access to information allowing anyone to examine the familiar, scientists still look for unfamiliar places for new insights : last year, the Philae spacecraft landed on a comet, the result of a ten year mission. The data sent back to earth will help scientists understand the origins of life, something that would be difficult to comprehend by looking only at earth, the familiar place.

While the familiar still holds many secrets, the biggest insights generally come from the unfamiliar as demonstrated by the three examples of Henry Ford, Galileo and the Philae spacecraft.

I would greatly appreciate new remarks to continue improving!

Thanks

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Anyone?

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Sometimes it takes a more clever conclusion. The conclusion is the last piece the graders will read, so it needs to be memorable. Using the typical “as demonstrated by the three examples” is what the grader will read in 10/11 mundane essays and will likely result in a similar score of 8 or so. Given that, I always try to be different. Sneak in your summary of the essay in the conclusion, which you stated blatantly, in a more clever way that almost seems like you aren’t summarizing the essay, but is still a functional conclusion.

Also, it doesn’t hurt to throw in some of those SAT vocabulary words. A favorite of mine is “Ostensibly.” A more interesting and concise way to say “while it may seem like , in reality.” The more concise you are (using SAT vocab) you will be able to fit in more information in the same amount of space, and it will sound less colloquial (also a good word to use).

Last tip, restrain your time limit to 20 minutes instead of 25 and try and write a couple essays with just as much information as the one you just posted. Not only will this make you feel less stressed for time on the actual test day, but when you have more time to write, you will be able to venture deeper into each body paragraph (will still being concise). What I mean by this is: When I read your paragraph about Galileo, it was very limited information on the topic. It was clear, to the point, and provided a concrete example which is all great and exactly what you should do on the SAT, but to set your essay apart from others (which leads to a higher score) it is wise to give more depth into the example and analyze the example instead of just stating what happened (not necessarily more length, but it can result in a sentence or two longer which is okay). This analization provides the grader with the opinion that you can do more, and better than most other people, in the same amount of time, which again is a better score. Although, again I must say none of this “extra stuff” can be flowery fluff with no meaning, or it will only hurt your score.
This is all meant to be constructive, so I apologize if it came off as differently. We are in the same boat for essay style right now and I am also trying to improve on the stuff I mentioned.

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And what I meant when I said to analyze is to ask yourself questions when you are writing, namely HOW and WHY questions. For example, in your Henry Ford section where your said “revolutionizing the world,” you can then ask yourself how it revolutionized the world because the prompt asks if we can learn more from unfamiliar or familiar territory. So you can write a sentence or two on how the invention of cars then led to biomimicry in efficiency (such as the cars modeled off of the aerodynamics of fish) and revealed new ways to use energy sources, etc. And tie it all back to how Henry Ford’s car idea led to all this unexplored territory and set off a chain reaction of learning about other unknown territories. Be careful though, because if you don’t tie it all back to what the prompt asks (in this case tying it back to how this example revealed more information than examining the known would have), then your essay will be seen as off topic.