What am I doing wrong?? (Essay help please!)

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>The October 6 SAT test disappointed me greatly when I received my essay score. I feel that I did not deserve so low a score as an 8. Having allowed time to past, I realized that maybe my writing really does suck. Please review my essay and give me CONSTRUCTIVE feedback (negative or positive, I REALLY need to improve before the January SAT!).</p>

<p>Prompt: Do the actions of high achievers benefit all people?</p>

<p>Essay:</p>

<p>Society is pushed forward in progress because of people who make high achievements, and consequently make innovations that benefit the society. However, while high achievers benefit many as the result of their innovations, not ALL people benefit. This is unequivocally expressed in the makings of the Articles of Confederation and Animal Farm.</p>

<p>After making a formal break with Britain, the colonists needed a new way to govern themselves. A handful of very successful statesmen, such as George Washington and James Madison, drafted the Articles of Confederation, which would limit power from a single group and give power to the people. The Second Continental Congress, the body that made this document, had the Articles verified by all 13 colonies, effectively putting it into action. However, this new form of government, the result of hard work from high achievers like James Madison and Benjamin Franklin, did NOT nearly benefit all the people. The Articles gave Congress so little power that Congress could not even levy taxes or regulate commerce. Soon, discord among the colonies broke out as the economy tanked--a consequence exemplified by Shay's Rebellion. Daniel Shay, along with a multitude of impoverished farmers, took up arms and demanded that Congress ameliorate economic conditions--but Congress couldn't. Clearly, the Articles of Confederation left many in dire indigence, all because of the Second Continental Congress's actions.</p>

<p>In George Orwell's novel Animal Farm, Napoleon, a pig thirsty for power, overthrows the farmer because he felt that they, the animals, were not getting enough food. Following this revolution, all the animals praised Napoleon for his valiant efforts to free the animals from an oppressive regime. However, Napoleon soon sheds this veneer of kindness and reveals his true colors: he establishes another oppressive regime over the animals and gives them very little food. All the pigs reside in the top echelon of the animal society while everyone else sits in a huge class of disenfranchised wretches. As Napoleon put it: "Some animals are more equal than others." Napoleon, seen as a high achiever by his fellow animals, only tightens the rein on the food supplies, starving the other "not-as-equal" animals, an action that hurts the other animals.</p>

<p>As the Articles of Confederation and Animal Farm show, the repercussions of the actions that high achievers make do not benefit all people. In the former example, only the middle-class and aristocracy of statesmen benefited, but not the farmers, whose well-being is intrinsic to the entire society. In the latter example, Napoleon's ostensibly valiant scheme turns out to be another repressive regime as essentially every other animal suffers for Napoleon's benefit. These examples go to show that while the actions of high achievers benefit some people, not everyone can be satisfied.</p>

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<p>For your essay, you disagreed with the prompt and said that high achievers did not benefit all people. However, you focused on the aspect of it not benefiting ALL people, but it still benefited some people. A stronger essay would have been to have a thesis and examples that show that high achievers do not benefit ANY people (or just say that it doesn’t benefit all people)</p>

<p>Then again if people think my advice wouldn’t work, I can point out that your thesis states that the achievements benefit many people, and yet for the Articles of Confederation you state that it “left many in dire indigence,” as in it did not help many people. The aristocracy and middle class of the time are definitely not majority (same for Animal Farm) </p>

<p>You could just say that it did not benefit all people, just a small minority, which is unimportant in the long-run because it is the majority that ultimately decides how a society functions</p>

3

<p>Thank you very much for this feedback. I had some of my smarter friends read my essays, yet none of them revealed this to me. Stronger position!</p>

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<p>Any other suggestions?</p>

5

<p>Hi General. </p>

<p>You have some awkward phrases that are jarring to a reader:
-“people who make high achievements”
-“the makings of the Articles of Confederation”
-" had the Articles verified by all 13 colonies" ‘ratified’ or ‘approved’
-“the economy tanked” too informal.<br>
“a consequence exemplified” makes it sound like the economy tanking is the ‘consequence’. What you want to say is “…causing an economic crash, with subsequent serious social consequences such as Shay’s Rebellion”

  • “dire indigence” awkward. either “dire need” or “indigent”.
    -“the actions that high achievers make” should be ‘take’ or better yet just say “the high achievers’ actions” </p>

<p>The Articles of Confederation example isnt quite clicking with me. I’ll give you that we have high-achievers involved. But was Daniel Shay’s problem <em>caused</em> by the Articles? Or was it just that the government didnt have enough power to effectively address a problem that was caused by an extrinsic source- in which case I think you are in an area that the prompt wasnt addressing. And also wouldnt it be fair for the reader to assume that Shay and the other farmers did get a benefit from the Articles in their freedom from Britain and the establishment of Federal representative government. Just because they had one grievance in commerce doesnt mean that they didnt benefit in other areas. </p>

<p>Here is the text that the CB supplied in addition to the prompt. I think that you can see that this clarifies the position they expect you to take. They expect that the argument against the prompt is that achievement is a zero-sum game that must come at someone’s expense. Clearly the Article of Confederation example does not fit this line of reasoning.</p>

<p>“Prompt: Some say that high achievers—people who reach their ambitious goals because of their determination and skills—always get ahead at the expense of others. When one political candidate is elected, others are defeated; when someone wins in any kind of competitive event, others lose. But this view of achievers is too negative. By improving the world around them and providing an example for all to follow, achievers benefit others as well as themselves.” </p>

<p>The “Animal Farm” example seems a lot more solid. I think your argument would have been even stronger if you addressed WHY you feel the actions may inevitably be detrimental to some people. For instance- Napoleon was really interested in improving his own status and power and his campaign on getting more food was really just a rallying point to obtain his real ends. Since he really didnt have the other animals best interest as his goal, it was inevitable that they really wouldnt benefit. You can see that this plays to the CB’s prompt- Napoleon got power because he was able to exploit the gullibility and weakness of the other animals. </p>

<p>You conclusion is ok- you are restating, which is fine. However you lose it on the last sentence where you introduce this new concept that “not everybody can be satisfied”. That wasnt addressed before, and the conclusion is no place to introduce a new thesis.</p>

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<p>I don’t have much to add in terms of criticism that hasn’t already been mentioned; I would just like to say that I would score this essay 5/6.</p>

7

<p>@argbargy</p>

<p>Thank you for your criticism. You’re critiques have been the most helpful! I appreciate everyone who has responded to this thread. So I assume that the best way to achieve a good score is to have a solid example bank so that I would not use an inappropriate example? I realize that my Articles of Confederation argument is not a very valid argument for this prompt. I will work on some better wording (there definitely was an abundance of odd-sounding phrases) and a stronger example for next time.</p>

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<p>My reading of your essay is that your main challenges are language use, sentence flow, word choice, and basic syntax. On the positive side, your examples are fine, and your arguments are clear.</p>

<p>I encourage you to have an English teacher work with you on the language issues with this sample essay. Each of the writing issues that I allude to is relatively small, but together they result in an awkwardly written English essay that is a chore to read.</p>

<p>I don’t see a great benefit to you in coming up with an example bank.</p>

<p>Between now and January I encourage you to read well written “essays”. Editorials in newspapers such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journals and literary magazines such as Atlantic are good sources.</p>

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<p>This will probably not help much (and some people may disagree), but the essay grading of the SAT is somewhat random. Unless your essay is incredibly well-written with abundant examples, excellent vocab, and perfect structure (or, of course, extremely poor), your grade pretty much depends on the particular reader’s method of differentiating essays that belong in the 7-9 score range. One set of readers might give an essay a score of 7 while another set will give it a 9. </p>

<p>With that being said, I’ve taken the SAT twice, and both times I received a 9. Your essay, imo, is FAR better than either one of mine, so I find it unfortunate that you only received an 8.</p>

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<p>The CB likes to give out sample essays that use personal stories and are relatively short. I think this is essentially a PR effort to address the MIT study. Your essay will be graded by someone who has worked as highschool with a background in writing and composition- so most often an English teacher. They will have about a minute to read and assess your essay. Given that target reader, its my opinion that it makes sense to ignore the CB’s spin and pick strongly academic examples.
[Become</a> an SAT Essay Reader](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/prof-dev/opportunities/become-sat-reader]Become”>Home – SAT Suite of Assessments | College Board)</p>

<p>There was a recent essay on CC where the examples were two football payers and the Hunger Games movie. All other things being equal, does that give the reader the impression that they are dealing with a college bound student who has paid attention during high school? </p>

<p>Its probably the case that students who read a lot are also going to write a decent essay. They will also have a lot of possible example at their finger tips since they are readers. On the other hand you probably have gone through a decent amount of works in your schooling. Go back and summarize them for yourself. After you have read the prompt and are staring at a blank sheet of paper is no time to start trying to remember the details of “A Tale of Two Cities” and if the themes can be made to fit your plan of attack.</p>

<p>Anecdotal, but people claim that the reviewers give more weight to highly specific examples, especially with quotes, verses generalities. So saying “As Charles Dickenson’s ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ shows the actions of one person can change the course of a country.” verses "At the end of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ Sydney Cartons self-sacrifice and personal courage signals a spirit that will spread and restore all of France. He bravely faces the people as he thinks ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.’ " With more details your thesis can be more impactful to the grader. And you help form the impression you are a serious college bound student. </p>

<p>It should really only take you a couple of hours to go back and summarize the works you have already read. Make a couple of notes for each one on characters and themes. Maybe jot a couple of quotes. You dont have to remember them perfectly during the essay but at least you’ll have some recall and that could make a difference in getting an extra point from each reader.</p>

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<p>Thanks again argbargy and feedback411 and fogcity for your help. I truly appreciate it. It appears that my main problem is syntactical and sentence structure, things that can be fixed in the two months I have left. Thanks again for all your support!</p>

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<p>It’s very good advice, and it’s helped me alot with writing SAT essays. The only problem I have is that I still find it very hard to think of 3 decent examples that really fit the prompt, especially under the pressure of time. I’ve heard that the prompt should be spun to fit, but it is still quite difficult for me.</p>

<p>For example, esp. with prompts like these:</p>

<p>It often seems as though we truly respect only people whom we do not know, such as leaders and other public figures. It is much more difficult for us to respect people who are familiar to us and are part of our everyday lives. The fact is that if we were to develop close personal relationships with these strangers that we look up to, we would see that they are only ordinary people, just as flawed as we are.</p>

<p>Does familiarity prevent people from developing or maintaining respect for others?</p>

<p>Is compromise always the best way to resolve a conflict?</p>

<p>Does having a large number of options to choose from make people happy? </p>

<p>Are people likely to succeed by repeating actions that worked for them in the past? </p>

<p>Does money lead to selfishness? </p>

<p>If anyone has some suggestions or a number of examples for each prompt (more than 3) or ways to spin these prompts, it would be greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>