<p>It was a practice essay, I chose Prompt 4 from the last SAT (May).</p>
<p>People define themselves by work, by what they "do." When one person asks another, "What do you do?" the answer always refers to a job or profession: "I'm a doctor, an accountant, a farmer." I've often wondered what would happen if we changed the question to, "Who are you?" or, "What kind of person are you?" or even, "What do you do for fun?"</p>
<p>Adapted from Stephan Rechtschaffen, Time Shifting</p>
<p>Assignment:
Are people best defined by what they do? 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.</p>
<p>This is my essay response:</p>
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<p>Professions do not dictate what people are truly like in the least bit. Several examples from literary works and history help to show that a person's job does not define who they "are."</p>
<p>In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne the main character, Hester Prynne, lives in a Puritan society and does charity work for people in the town. Her chosen profession is a seamstress who makes clothes for the less unfortunate. By this act Hester appears as a moral person who does good to society. In reality though, if you look beyond her profession Hester is actually a sinner in society. Hester had been ostracized from the town for committing adultery with another man, thus she was trying to redeem herself by doing charity work. Hester wasn't a normal person as she had seemed through her vocation. Hence, Hester's job gave the wrong image of her and didn't truly represent who she "was."</p>
<p>Jack Welch is another example to this statement. Jack Welch started off as a novice worker at General Electric. He was planning to leave the company because of unequal pay and extra benefits for those at the top of the chain. He wanted a reformation of the company to better benefit those at the bottom of the chain. Later on though, because a friend convinced him to keep working for the company and because of his hard work, he moved up through the ranks and was eventually promoted to CEO. Naturally, CEO's are stereotyped as being greedy and pompous. Not Jack Welch. He followed through on his opinions and even though he was a CEO he still reformed the company and changed the whole management hierarchy to both benefit the company and the workers. Therefore, Jack Welch's position had no indication as to what kind of person he was whatsoever.</p>
<p>After careful analysis, Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, and Jack Welch indeed show that people are not define by what they do for a living. People work just to make money, not flaunt who they are. If people's jobs reflected who they were then everyone would probably have the wrong job.</p>
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<p>So, what do you guys thing? :) What score would you give it?</p>