Also, I think it would be helpful if we created a list of examples that would be good to memorize for the essay. The list should consist of at least 6 literary and historical examples. So far I can only think of Animal Farm (can show opinions and values, morality, and success and achievement) and Frankenstein (can show knowledge, learning, and creativity, success and achievement, and morality). Feel free to add to this list:
Literary Examples:
Animal Farm
Frankenstein
Historical Example:
through creativity and ingenuity* @JuicyMango by the way, i think that ur essay is a 10 at least.Shaan Patel ,eh? xD
Assignment :Should people make more of an effort to keep some things private? 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.
The presumption that people should keep some things private is categorically false.Although some romantic critics would say that everyone has a right to privacy ,these critics are too dogmatic in their provincial ideology that they fail to notice the reality.The fact that people should not keep some things private can be exemplified using the examples of the holocaust,To Kill a Mocking Bird and the Hillary Clinton email controversy.
In the World War 2,the Germans killed many Jews and Polish people and made sure to keep that a secret.Hitler,with the support of his racist followers killed millions of people.Had the United states and the Allies known about this,they would have prevented it.
Another paradigm is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking bird.Set in this early 1900s,this book describes a man named Boo Radley.Jem and Scott,two children who live opposite to his house, are told by the society that Boo is a reprobate and is vulgar.Boo’s brother Nathan locks him in his house for years.But at the end of the story,Boo saves Jem’s life from a man who tried to attack him and that in reality Boo is a kind-hearted person.Had he not been kept locked inside,he would have contributed towards the good of his society.
In 2015,Hillary Clinton came under a lot of heat after the American public realised that she was using personal email accounts during her tenure as secretary of state.Had she not hidden this fact,she would still be the loved person she always was and the Democrats wouldn’t have come under severe backlash.
In summation I would like to say that the thesis “people should keep some things private” is a fallacy and it is only by keeping certain things open to the public can society achieve happiness and tranquility.
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Okay,I know i’m no pro but that’s why I’m here.Please give me suggestions on how to improve and grade my essay.Thanks.
@JuicyMango nice essay, although I think that the second argument is better than the first because it relates better to the prompt. Nice word use, probably a 9/12. Could you please criticize my essay above as well?
It’s a 7/12 @UdeOsae .
In the first paragraph ,you unnecessarily used ‘would’ a lot,limited the scope of your support to ‘science fiction’ and the quote in the last paragraph doesn’t have much to do with the assignment question.And there’s a grammatical error in your last paragraph(when used rightly*)
Your stance on the issue is ambiguous.
And the vocabulary used is poor.
Hope this helps. 
Yeah I know its harsh but I did it just for your good.Work on those points and your score will improve.
Can someone else also criticize my essay?
@UdeOsae I’d say 8 or 9, I disagree with hardwork123.
Much better word use and such, just need to nail down the seriousness of it all. Like, I know this sounds cheesy, but directly answering the prompt and showing a very strong stance would work wonders for your essay. Also, make it flow a little nicer.
Please give suggestions for my essay and grade it.
Yeah, @UdeOsae ,its probably an 8 but no more.
@hardwork213: Haha yeah I thought it was a pretty good method so I’m trying it out :). Yeah I messed up the “ingenious” and “ingenuity” diction but essay graders are lenient with little things like that right? Do you think I should be more specific, like I should describe a specific scientist and a specific founding father? Would that help my essay? Thank you for grading my essay btw I thought it would be like a 6 so you gave me more hope :).
@UseOsae: Lol my fear is actually getting a 9 on the essay because there is still a chance that I could get a 790 even with a perfect multiple choice section…that would definitely suck. I’m working on coming up with better examples, so hopefully both my arguments will be good next time. Thank you for your criticism :). Also, I’m not very good with coming up with grades on the essay but I do think your essay is at least a 10 because it is very well developed.
@JuicyMango - I just read your essay and have a few suggestions. Yes, you should be more specific and and describe specific examples rather than general (like you did with the founding fathers and scientists). You should also think through the arguments more. Your answer about the founding fathers seemed to be something that you were trying to fit into your template rather than a thoughtful analysis of the prompt. Big picture, you didn’t even really make your point. Examples of how certain people’s creativity was important does not show that all people must be creative. Next time, spend more time thinking about how the facts you know can more specifically make your point. Your template’s great; now its time to focus on really good arguments in support of a thesis.
Can someone please grade my essay…ughh
@hardwork123 - I’d probably give your essay an 8 or 9. The best way to improve it would be to focus more on analysis. Reread your paragraph above. Where is the analysis? Its completely confined to the last sentence. The rest of the paragraph is either intro or a plot description. A good essay will have much more analysis and much less plot description.
Your second word, paradigm, is not used properly. Like juicymango your essay appears to be focused first on the template, next on vocab and last on analysis. Also, both of you are using absolutes for questions that are definitely not so clear cut. You take the concept of sharing info vs privacy to a little bit of a ridiculous level. Of course people should keep some things private; you could have made a similar point without saying nothing should be kept private.
Both of you will receive decent scores because you know a lot of facts, write reasonably well and have a good template. To get to the next level though, you’ll need to develop stronger arguments in support of your theses.
@CHD2013: First of all thank you for the insightful criticism, I agree with everything you wrote. So you think I should keep the templates, but just focus on getting better at developing stronger arguments to support my thesis? Also what score would you give my essay? I want to know how far away I am from writing a 10 essay.
For the question “Do all people need to be creative?”, how would you answer the question? For example, I used the founding fathers and scientists examples, but that doesn’t show that ALL people need to be creative…so how would you go about proving that?
CHD thank you for your constructive criticism.I’ll follow everything you said
Anyone else memorizing essay examples? Are you just writing down general details? How should I go about memorizing them? How long do you think it will take to memorize 14 examples adequately? I have until Saturday and I would like to sleep on time on Friday, so really I only have to create example outlines :/.
Hey guys. I’m taking the SAT on Saturday and would really, really appreciate some feedback on my essay.
Essay Prompt - Do changes that make our lives easier not necessarily make them better?
Essay-
Technology has grown in leaps and bounds in the last couple of decades and has made our lives infinitely easier. However, has it necessarily made our lives better? I disagree and instead, strongly believe that easier lives are not necessarily better lives. This can be seen in the pertinent examples of Brave New World and Frankenstein.
Brave New World is a classic, dystopian novel in which society is divided into different castes such as Alpha, Beta etc. People are not born but are merely manufactured and then conditioned to be the ‘perfect’ individual. One major theme of this novel is the popular addiction to the drug ‘soma’. This drug detaches people from reality and transports them to their own dream world where they can live out their fantasies. Due to this, people become highly deluded and do not realize their plights. Only the protagonist, Bernard Marx, and the ’ Savage’, both of whom are not addicts, are able to recognize and lament the loss of individuality and expression. As this example shows, changes that make our lives easier often make them more superficial and less grounded in reality.
Another example that comes to mind is that of the novel ’ Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley. In this novel, Victor Frankenstein strives to create a living organism from dead body parts. This, he believes, would be his ultimate triumph and immortalize him in the eyes of posterity. However, he ends up creating a grotesque, inhuman monster. This monster, fueled by rage and fury due to his solitude and rejection by society, destroy’s Frankenstein’s life by murdering his family and driving him insane. As this example shows us, changes that may seem to be beneficial often turn out to be double-edged swords, capable of anything across the moral spectrum.
From the above, we can justifiably theorize that technological advances are not always beneficial. It is upto society to utilize this technology in the best possible way.
Thanks in advance!
@JuicyMango - yes, I would just focus on developing stronger arguments. Your vocab is so strong that I think even without strong arguments you could get a 9 (that’s my grade). It could be improved by eliminating words your not completely sure about (for example, you used ingenious wrong in your essay).
I think for the essay topic about creativity, or any question about all people, its easier to take the negative side of the argument. Two eamples of people who didn’t need creativity prove that not all people need it; its more difficult to argue that all people need it, although that may be a level of precision that gets ignored by scorers; I’m not really sure.
I would not memorize examples. I’d suggest memorizing around a dozen important facts for 6-8 good essay topics. That should be enough to develop good arguments for any prompt.
I may not be back here before Saturday. If not, good luck to all!!
I would really appreciate it if you could take a look at this and give tips to make it better, thanks in advance(:
Topic
Technology promises to make our lives easier, freeing up time for leisure pursuits. But the rapid pace of technological innovation and the split second processing capabilities of computers that can work virtually nonstop have made all of us feel rushed. We have adopted the relentless pace of the very machines that were supposed to simplify our lives, with the result that, whether at work or at play, people do not feel like their lives have changed for the better. Adapted from Karen Finucan, “Life in the Fast Lane.”
Assignment: Do changes that make our lives easier not necessarily make them better?
The question “Do changes make our lives easier not necessarily make them better?” suggests that development and innovation, to some degree, undermine our happiness. In my opinion, changes have value, but they have a high price. Throughout society and in life, the evidence to support my perspective is pervasive.
Consider the case of the town of Umofia in Chinua Achebe’s 1884 novel Things Fall Apart, written in Nigeria. The novel explores the ramifications of the introduction of western technology and culture in a Nigerian village. While the newly discovered guns and medicines reduce the villagers workload, the changes subvert traditional values and lead to the suicide of the village’s beloved chief Okonwko, who feels he has failed their ancestors. The changes make life easir, but not better.
Also take note of Harvard Proffessor Jame Johnson’s study Innovation’s Dilemma. Mr. Johnson spent three and a half years researching the effects of social media and cellular devices on households. His results were shocking: couples that spend more than three hours a day on their cell phones are twenty-three percent more likely to get divorced than couples that are less dependent on technology. Clearly, while innovations such as cell phones make communication with the outside world easier, they undermine our relationships with those closest to us.
Finally, consider my trip to the Indus Mountains. In 2006, I received the opportunity to hike to the highest peak in the Indus Mountain range. The view at the top was breathtaking; however, I was particularly awed by the sights that I encountered during the course of my hike: the pristine rivers, the verdant forests, and the colorful birds perched on the trees. When I returned to the mountain range in 2009, I found that the government had installed a train that took us to the top of the peak because “it made the trip easier.” The view was beautiful, but the change prevented us from experiencing the beauty of the journey.
Clearly, a thorough analysis of the above examples shows that changes make our lives easier but not always better. Often, the most outdated parts of our lives are the best parts.