Would Like Your Opinions on This Essay (MAY 5 Test)

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<p>The following essay earned an 8 (which I think is probably spot-on); however, when I compared it to my daughter's essay from a few years before, which was also an 8 and was much, much worse than this, I'm kind of surprised. There are at least two glaring errors in this (a hypenated word that should not be hyphenated and a word left out in haste). I'd love your opinions on how this could have been improved.</p>

<p>Essay Prompt: People talk too much about their feelings. They share their deepest secrets and innermost thoughts on television talk shows. They write revealing autobiographies. They buy books that advise them to tell others about their feelings. We would be far better off if we followed the advice of Florence Nightingale, a pioneer in the field of nursing, who thought that people too often waste their feelings by talking about them and should instead turn their feelings into actions that bring results.</p>

<p>Assignment: Is iti better for people to act on their feelings than to talk about them? 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.</p>

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<p>I believe whole-heartedly that we ought to act on our feelings rather than simply express them. We can express them to others, but expression without action does not do anything. Actions speak louder than words. What do your feeling matter if you do not act on them?</p>

<p>The most basic example of acting on your feelings is voting. You can express your support for a candidate in many ways: rallies, debates, and discussions. Yet none of them compare to venturing to the voting booth and casting your vote. This simple action, which is guided by your feelings, is the important process in any democratic society.</p>

<p>The emotions of sympathy and empathy are virtues many o fus have felt towards others. Those feelings give way to charity and charitiy is what improves and shapes society. Yet those emotions are hollow and empty if you only express them. Your sympathy towards a starving vagabond does not satiate him. However, acting on your sympathetic feelings does. A simple act of charity carries more weight than an ocean of emotion.</p>

<p>Taking action and taking charge are the simplest remedies to the burdens and struggles of society. Famous civil rights figures such as Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. acted on their feelings of injsutice and hope for equality. They shaped society in a myriad of ways. Rosa's small action of sitting the white only section was a major catalyst for the civil rights movement that changed American society.</p>

<p>Emotions without actions are static. Without action we would not be living in the same world. We must put aside apathy and laziness and work for our posterity like every great historical figure.</p>

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<p>I like this essay. I think the features that held the score down were primarily:</p>

<p>1) Length. All CB protests aside, my observations suggest that longer essays will tend to score higher, other qualities being equal.</p>

<p>2) Statements of general principle, rather than nitty-gritty examples. The CB prompt is written in the abstract, really. This tends to make students think that they should respond in a style that I will call “Emersonian.” [Check out some essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson if you are not sure what I mean by this.] The first two examples, voting and charitable action, are both written in the Emersonian mode, particularly the one on charitable action. The paragraph on voting comes down to an exhortation, rather than a specific example or detailed reasoning.</p>

<p>In my opinion, a quick way for a writer like this to improve the essay score is to think in terms of high-quality journalism in response to the question. Instead of writing about Rosa Parks in a non-detailed way, the writer could provide some telling details. Ground the generalities in specifics about location, time of day, civil rights restrictions of the era (there were many), and the historical chain of influence.</p>

<p>Bringing in Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great idea. The essay could be improved by adding more detail–perhaps the great speeches that King made could be cast as work of transformation of feelings into action. That would permit the writer to segue into the marches, and other clear “action” undertakings of the civil rights movement.</p>

<p>A few other specific suggestions on this essay:

  1. Generally, I think a student will score higher if he/she avoids the second person (you, your).
  2. Normally, one would write either “an important process” or “the most important process” rather than “the important process,” in context.
  3. It is better to use a simpler word rather than a more sophisticated one, unless the more sophisticated one is used precisely correctly. The word “satiate” is a little jarring, in its context. To “satiate” means to satisfy fully–it’s practically on the borderline of “stuffing.” In this context, it would be much stronger to say “Your sympathy toward a starving vagabond does not feed him.” (There’s still the problem with “Your” and also the abstractness of the example.)
  4. The word choice in the first line of the next-to-the-last paragraph is a little off. It would be more typical in standard English to write of lifting a burden rather than remedying it. Taking action is different from taking charge. “Taking charge” tends to be fairly difficult, actually.<br>
  5. Technically (i.e. in the mind-set of a nitpicking grammarian), I believe that myriad is an adjective–or at least it used to be, although one more commonly sees usages such as “a myriad of ways” in writing lately.
  6. In typing the essay, did you leave out “in” in the phrase “Rosa’s small action of sitting the white only section”?</p>

<p>Hope this is helpful. Mainly, I think that the readers are asked to look for specific details and lengthy examples to give a full score, even though the prompts themselves tend to be rather generic and vague.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the input. The word “in” was accidentally left out in his need to rush through the essay. I’m sure he was marked down for this.</p>

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<p>I read an article in the New York Times (quite a while ago) by a journalist who was being trained to score the essays in the SAT Writing test. The commentary made it clear that the scorers are not actually looking for a response whose breadth even approximately matches the breadth of the question. They seem to be enamored of specific details. Furthermore, the details can be full of factual errors–a strange approach to writing. But I think the serious-journalist approach is the key to a high score.</p>

<p>As you can probably detect, I don’t think much of the SAT essay component. I tend to side with the people at the University of Chicago, who are not especially interested in that score. They prefer depth of thought, which usually requires more than 30 minutes of thinking, before one even begins to write.</p>

<p>If the rest of the scores were good, I wouldn’t worry much about the essay component.</p>