SAT essay- grade please!

Hi,

It would be great if you can grade and critique the following essay. The topic is “Should people take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general?”

ESSAY:
Social psychologist Yildiz suggested that humans desire to improve their living conditions but often depend excessively on external factors such as the government to achieve this goal. It is critical that we understand not only that we possess a huge power, but also that we should strive to take more responsibility for solving problems that affect us. Examples in literature and history are very pervasive.

Brutus in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is an ideal example of a person who takes immense responsibility to solve a problem that his country, Italy, was facing. Though a loving ally of Caesar, Brutus joins a conspiracy to assassinate him, as he feared that Caesar was ascending the ladder to tyranny. The ascension of a single man to absolute power was bound to ensnare the country into monarchism, something unacceptable to Brutus. Brutus takes the responsibility for preserving the republican status of Rome into his own hands. He reminds us that we must strive to solve problems that affect us.

Rotana Tarabzouni is another classic example of a person who has stood up for her community. She grew up in Saudi Arabia, in an environment that restricted her freedom in every possible way, from apparel to expression. She wanted to become a singer, but her culture forbade that; hence, she moved to the US where she learnt how to sing. She sang songs encouraging the liberation of Saudi women. She has inspired several women to stand for their rights. In a very apt manner, she strived to solve a pervasive social issue.

As evident from the above examples, taking responsibilities extremely important and can help resolve pertinent issues. Thus, we must be mindful of our potency and take initiative.

First of all, with all of the people you are citing in your essay, it needs to be clear who they are and what they do. In your intro you mention Yildiz. I am not sure who this person is and I even tried googling but found nothing relevant. In your third paragraph you talk about Rotana Tarabzouni. It is unlikely that your essay grader will know who this person is. You should provide a brief (one or two sentence) explanation of who this person is first because the essay grader certainly will not take the time to find out for you.

Other than the unclear statement about the social psychologist, your intro paragraph looks pretty good to me. Your examples are good and you effectively tie them back to the prompt at the end of the paragraph. Good job on word choice in these two paragraphs.

I think you could, if you have time during the actual test, write a little more in your conclusion. You could possibly sum up what you are saying in the body paragraphs and reflect a bit more on the topic.

Another small thing to consider is length. If you can, try to take up as much of the two pages as you can with substantive writing, ideally the entire two pages. If you can, considering coming up with a third example that can strengthen your essay.

Hi xc4life,

Thank you so much for your constructive feedback. This is very helpful.

Ali Aslan Yildiz is a Dutch social psychologist. I heard about him in a psychology class. Actually the study is not completely true; I have heard that examples do not need to be 100% correct on the SAT. I had heard of this study, though I couldn’t remember who the researcher was; hence, I put in Yildiz’s name :stuck_out_tongue: