<p>Alright everyone, here is the essay I wrote for the sitting in which I received a "perfect" score of 2400 (and a top score on the essay). Please tell me your opinions of the essay, in terms of both content and quality of language. </p>
<p>I want the good, the bad, the ugly.</p>
<p>The prompt was something along the lines of: "Do groups achieve more when a person in a group behaves in a manner conducive to the achievement of an individual goal, or when they act in the interest of a goal common to the entire group?"</p>
<p>My essay follows:</p>
<pre><code>The uniquely human capacity for group organization and collective action indeed is responsible for much of humanity’s triumphs. However, groups do not function at an optimal level when their individual parts work for a good other than that of the group. Rather, all people work towards one unified goal in the ideal group. The ultimate failure of the French Revolution and the origins of the Cold War support this assertion.
The French Revolution, a tempestuous social evolution that shook the foundations of Europe’s class structure, saw the unification of the peasants and the upper middle class against the aristocracy that, for centuries, had maintained a foothold on society. Although the Revolution achieved an ephemeral sort of success, it ultimately became a bloody blunder as it devolved into the now infamous Reign of Terror, only to have another tyrant ascend to the throne in its wake. Why? Because the peasants and the upper middle class had different, irreconcilable goals. The peasants sought to ameliorate the poverty and desitution that plagued their lives at the base of the social pyramid. The upper middle class- doctors, lawyers, and bankers- intended to inherit the same status that the aristocrats once held. Over time these disparate goals caused much dispute, gave rise to much dissent, and left the country in a state of intellectual destitution and moral bankruptcy for both classes.
Less than two centuries later, yet more political disaster resulted from the inclusion of two inherently incompatible goals into one group. During World War II, the democratic United States and the communist Soviet Union joined under one political banner in order to effectively combat the Fascist hydras brewing in Germany and Italy. However, as the war drew to a close and each side’s military encircled Hitler’s Berlin, it became clear as day that two incompatible goals had managed to slip into the Allied Alliance: both the Soviets and the Americans wanted control of Germany after the War. Mutually aware of this, both sides rushed into Berlin to fill the avoid after the Nazi surrender, resulting in the polarized West and East Germany’s and ultimately in the Cold War. Had both nations been truly working toward one goal, Fascism would have still been dismantled but the decades of nuclear Fear and mutually-assured destruction might have never been.
Groups, despite the intuitive belief to the contrary, are most effective not when their members pursue individual goals but when their members work toward a common goal. Both the French Revolution and the rise of the Iron Curtain evince this.
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So don’t worry!</p>![http://www.goiit.com/upload/2008/11/7/10aaef7871f0b6eabffb0a19d12e71f2_1713.jpeg[/url]](http://www.goiit.com/upload/2008/11/7/10aaef7871f0b6eabffb0a19d12e71f2_1713.jpeg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
![http://www.goiit.com/upload/2008/11/7/328fdda5454d472dc3c3e7dca5ad1af4_1713.jpeg[/url]](http://www.goiit.com/upload/2008/11/7/328fdda5454d472dc3c3e7dca5ad1af4_1713.jpeg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
