College Confidential - View Single Post - score my essay: the one that will help me begin select school

amb3r · 11-23-2007, 07:40 PM

Hi,

I corrected either grammatical errors or errors that aren't really grammatical, but are still serious mistakes that you made as a nonnative English speaker.

While history books, as we learn in school, highlight only great events and great men, the<-- NO 'THE' history is also made up of daily contributions of average people. Without those contributions, great men couldn’t do such “big victories” that we learn of everyday. These are many less interesting events that INSERT 'WE' associate with a great events. Take the history book in my country, for example. Since history isn’t a “main subject”, we learn so little history that we only know that the last leader of the Soviet was Mikhail Gorbachev. We don’t know that what brought about USSR’s collapse is a long story: Cold War, Emergency Committee, 1991 coup. We only know that Yeltsin dared to clamber up on a tank to defy the coup, as if he was a hero, but we hardly know that Russian people gathered before the Government’s bulding to denounce it, too. Their gathering was “contributions of ordinary people”, which was definitely a part of history, though many could neglect the fact.

In science classes, we often encounter passages of great talented scientists’ biographies. Again, many DELETE 'people' among us only know of those great men’s names. Doing more research, I found out that some well-known experiments resulted from ideas of college students (Oersted’s experiment of bar magnet and electric current), from other lesser-known scientists’ research (astrological accomplishments surely have taken results from millions of hours of observation in many space research institutes around the world). Great scientists themselves need co-ordinators, assistants, funds, and universities in order to succeed. Again, those can be viewed as “ordinary people’s contributions”, BUT ALSO as a part of history.

In conclusion, I can say that history is a “biography of theworld’s whole population”, not that of great men. In fact, with the development of theInternet, one could find out all related minor information associating with a great event. One could find out all information of an ordinary congressman of the 1950s, who had anordinary position, and then retired withDELETEut a little fame. I’m glad that history didn’t sideline those people.

This essay is probably between 3-4 out of 6. Your structure needs to be improved. Read a prep book to learn how to properly structure the SAT essay. Three paragraph essays are a no-no (GENERALLY). Your ideas are solid. If you could reorganize this into a proper 4 or 5 paragraph essay with your supporting information presented in the middle paragraphs, rather than sprinkled haphazardly all across your essay, you could immediately bump your 3-4 to a 4-5. Your grammatical errors are noticeable, but they're not too bad, and there are not too many of them. Some of your grammar still gives away the fact that you are not a native speaker, but overall, this is a rather good job for a nonnative English speaker. With practice (especially with regards to organization), and given the amount of knowledge that you have, I think you could produce 5s out of 6s on your SAT essay if you work hard.

11-23-2007, 07:40 PM	#3
amb3r Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: cambridge, ma Posts: 1,388	Hi, I corrected either grammatical errors or errors that aren't really grammatical, but are still serious mistakes that you made as a nonnative English speaker. While history books, as we learn in school, highlight only great events and great men, the<-- NO 'THE' history is also made up of daily contributions of average people. Without those contributions, great men couldn’t do such “big victories” that we learn of everyday. These are many less interesting events that INSERT 'WE' associate with a great events. Take the history book in my country, for example. Since history isn’t a “main subject”, we learn so little history that we only know that the last leader of the Soviet was Mikhail Gorbachev. We don’t know that what brought about USSR’s collapse is a long story: Cold War, Emergency Committee, 1991 coup. We only know that Yeltsin dared to clamber up on a tank to defy the coup, as if he was a hero, but we hardly know that Russian people gathered before the Government’s bulding to denounce it, too. Their gathering was “contributions of ordinary people”, which was definitely a part of history, though many could neglect the fact. In science classes, we often encounter passages of great talented scientists’ biographies. Again, many DELETE 'people' among us only know of those great men’s names. Doing more research, I found out that some well-known experiments resulted from ideas of college students (Oersted’s experiment of bar magnet and electric current), from other lesser-known scientists’ research (astrological accomplishments surely have taken results from millions of hours of observation in many space research institutes around the world). Great scientists themselves need co-ordinators, assistants, funds, and universities in order to succeed. Again, those can be viewed as “ordinary people’s contributions”, BUT ALSO as a part of history. In conclusion, I can say that history is a “biography of theworld’s whole population”, not that of great men. In fact, with the development of theInternet, one could find out all related minor information associating with a great event. One could find out all information of an ordinary congressman of the 1950s, who had anordinary position, and then retired withDELETEut a little fame. I’m glad that history didn’t sideline those people. This essay is probably between 3-4 out of 6. Your structure needs to be improved. Read a prep book to learn how to properly structure the SAT essay. Three paragraph essays are a no-no (GENERALLY). Your ideas are solid. If you could reorganize this into a proper 4 or 5 paragraph essay with your supporting information presented in the middle paragraphs, rather than sprinkled haphazardly all across your essay, you could immediately bump your 3-4 to a 4-5. Your grammatical errors are noticeable, but they're not too bad, and there are not too many of them. Some of your grammar still gives away the fact that you are not a native speaker, but overall, this is a rather good job for a nonnative English speaker. With practice (especially with regards to organization), and given the amount of knowledge that you have, I think you could produce 5s out of 6s on your SAT essay if you work hard. Last edited by amb3r; 11-23-2007 at 07:46 PM.
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