Score essay, please!

Test Preparation
1

<p>Would appreciate opinions on this essay. Please score. Exactly two pages, down to the last line. Copied it exactly, with gramatical errors and all, from my son's practice test. It took a while, as his handwriting is horrible. This concerns me...how do graders handle that?</p>

<p>Prompt - Is conscience a more powerful motivator than money, fame or power?</p>

<p>Conscience is a more powerful motivator than money, power or fame. Money, power, and fame can drive people to work hard, but superficially to achieve a goal. Alternatively, one's conscience can motivate him or her to work harder to achieve a goal, because it is more meaningful than superficial motives. This can be seen through the novels One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, by Jorge Amado.</p>

<p>In the fictional novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, the character Jose Arcadio is raised to be a Pope, by his great-great grandmother, Ursula. While she wants a virtuous, religious son, Jose Arcadio has other ideas. He does not pursue religion at all when sent to Rome, and instead decides to live off his family's money. He turns into a lazy slob who is more concerned with the image and power of a Pope than job's religious preservation. His slothfulness contradicts the hardworking, religious attitude he had as a young boy. This shows that conscience is a stronger motivator than money, power, or fame.</p>

<p>In the novel Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado, Mundinho Falcao and Colonel Ramiro Bastos work opposingly for the city; Mondinho wants to help progress the city by bringing schools, increasing exports, creating a newspaper service, and more. Ramiro, on the other hand, wants to preserve his wealthiness, by simply making the city look fine, but not actually making sure the city's needs are met. He works only as little as possible to help the city, while Mundinhis Falcao is a notoriously hard worker. This shows how money is an inferior motivator to conscience.</p>

<p>These examples show that conscience is a stronger motivator than fame, money or power. Fame, money, and power are motivators from our environment, which are superficial, in that they serve no meaningful purpose for our lives. Alternatively, the conscience is a motivator that comes from within , and drives us to seek our true wants in life, rather than pursuing these superficial objects. Therefore, instead of seeking money, power or fame in one's life, we should follow our conscience for a meaningful life.</p>

2

<p>" Ramiro, on the other hand, wants to preserve his wealthiness, by simply making the city look fine, but not actually making sure the city's needs are met."</p>

<p>This sentence is indeed a run-on, but otherwise content is pretty decent. I like your adjectives of meaningful, notoriously, and slothfulness. I would give this a 9/12 scoring ACT style. You have a clear thesis and point at it throughout your essay. Not a bad job but could use a little more polish.</p>

3

<p>From just briefly scanning the essay, it seems pretty solid. It seems to be long enough, and it follows a precise structure and organization. I would personally rate it around a 7 (since I'm a very tough grader), but I would expect college board to give this a score of around 8 or 9, as the graders only have 2 minutes to read and grade each essay, meaning general solidity in an essay is very helpful. </p>

<p>However, one problem with the essay is its repetitiveness. The phrase "money, power or fame" is used several times. Variety in terms of word choice may fix this issue. </p>

<p>There were also some grammatical mistakes, such as "one's conscience can motivate him or her to work harder to achieve a goal, because it is more meaningful than superficial motives." That uses 3 different pronouns referring to the same subject. </p>

<p>As a final note, the intro pretty much seems like a space filler. Intros do not need to be too long, as you will be elaborating on the argument of the essay later in the body paragraphs. Things that can be said in a sentence should not be split into 2 separate sentences simply for appearances. The same can be said about the conclusion, which is a little bit lengthy in my opinion.</p>

<p>Overall, a solid essay that can be improved upon if your son wants to score a perfect 12. Minor changes in the finer aspects of writing, such as sentence structure and grammer will definitely raise his score.</p>

4

<p>Boring intro just repeats the prompt. Some poor word choices. "Alternatively" sounds awkward. I'd prefer to just say "while". "Wealthiness" should be "wealth". "work opposingly" should probably be "work in different ways". I'm not sure that the second example is particularly convincing. (But that's a problem I have with most of the literary answers to SAT prompts, I admit.) I'd guess 7 or 8.</p>

5

<p>anyone else have comments or score? my son is taking SAT tomorrow.</p>

6

<p>me too ^ scared</p>