SAT Essay Question: Does questioning authority make a society stronger?

Please grade my essay and tell me what I need to improve on. Thank you so much for taking your time to grade this! :)>-

Questioning authority makes a society stronger. The government is supposed to keep their people safe and happy, but when the government takes away the natural rights of women and men, it is right for people to overthrow the government and create a new government that will ensure their safety and happiness. North Korea’s society and Mahatma Gandhi’s independence movement both show how important authority is for creating a strong society.

North Korea’s government does not give its people access to Internet, their freedom to read any book they want is taken away, and they are not given the freedom of religion. This government became destructive to the natural rights of humans, but its people remained loyal to their ruler. As a result, their society did not become stronger because since much of our education is obtained from the Internet and books, the North Koreans did not have access to all of the knowledge needed to know how to create a better society. They have been a developing country ever since they were separated from South Korea and they weren’t able to improve because their society was still not strong enough. This shows that questioning authority makes a society stronger because if we create a better government that protects our natural rights, then our society will be able to improve our country socially and economically.

Mahatma Gandhi questioned the British government and his protests united Indians from all of the different castes and religions because they all wanted independence from foreign rule. One of the main reasons why the British were able to take control over India was that they promised to protect a certain group of people from another group of people. They promised this to all of the group and that is how they gained almost everyone’s trust to rule India. But when Gandhi led India’s independence, he gained many followers and these people were of different social and religious backgrounds. So once the British realized that the Indians were no longer against each other, but instead they were all against the British government, they granted independence to India and the Indian National Congress was established. This shows that questioning authority makes society stronger because the rebellion unites us since we all have a common enemy.

North Korea’s government did not protect their people’s rights but the citizens did not rebel. Therefore, the North Koreans could not strengthen their society because they had little access to information which could have helped them improve it. Mahatma Gandhi, on the other hand, rebelled against British rule non-violently and united all of the Indian people of different social classes and religions. By the time India gained their independence, the citizens created a strong, unified society. Rebelling against the government is not easy, but the result of a strong society makes it all worth it.

I’m not too sure of a grade, but I think maybe a 8-10?

However, to improve: try to strengthen your thesis. Include a strong claim, warrant, and don’t forget to address the opposition. Something like “Although rebellion is often characterized as a negative facet of society, the ability of rebellion to unite a country and improve quality of life of citizens reveals how important questioning authority is in strengthening society, as demonstrated by North Korea’s society and the Indian independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi.”

In your essay, your examples are really solid! You have good support, but you neglect to connect it back to the prompt directly. It might seem repetitive or redundant, but you need to include the extra sentence or two that clearly and without a doubt connect your points back to the prompt.

It would also help if each paragraph started with a topic sentence, instead of jumping directly into your examples- your points should be the focus of each paragraph, and the examples support for the points. An argument organized in such a fashion will be clearer in conveying your claim, rather than allowing your examples to drive your essay.

And of course, improving vocabulary and sentence structure variance is always true. But overall, good job!

Thank you so much!