Here are two essays for two different prompts I have found. I got only a 7 on the real SAT on January 2015 and that drags my score down a lot. So I have been practicing to improve. The essays below are completed in around thirty minutes. Thanks!
Prompt: Is the way something seems to be always the same as it actually is?
The ostensible apparentness of something may not be the same as it actually is, because our mind has the inherent proclivity for partiality based on our experiences, beliefs and views of life towards a certain perception. The veracity of this claim is exemplified by the work of literature such as The Cuckoo’s Calling, To Kill A Mockingbird, and The Necklace.
In J.K. Rowling’s The Cuckoo’s Calling, the real cause of Lula Landry’s death is obscured less by the murderer’s weak schemes than by the police officers’ pertinacious beliefs that Lula Landry is a troubled model with mental disorders. Because the officers believe Lula Landry to be depressed, the investigation is led by partisan thoughts impervious to details that point to the true direction. The case is closed, concluding that the model had commited suicide, and it is not until three months after when a private investigator Cormoran Strike looks through the case as an objective outsider that the murderer is revealed and apprehended. The story shows that what appears to be the case might not be the actual case after all.
The same idea is also found in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mocking Bird. In the book, the narrator Scout Finch and her friends view Arthur Radley, a man who has never set his foot outside his house for fifteen years, as the phantom, enigmatic and unknown, of their town. However, as the story proceeds Scout finds the phantom materializing from the mysterious mist of rumours and tales into a being, a human just like her. Arthur Radley gives the children presents and mends their torn clothes, and when Scout is attacked by a corrupted man it is Radley who shows up and rescues her from the turmoil. Scout finally realizes that Arthur Radley is after all a human, which accentuates that the veracity of something cannot be assessed only from its appearance.
Just like the demise of Lula Landry and the existence of Arthur Radley, the necklace in Guy de Maupassant’s The Necklace is misconstrued because the mind of its evaluator is inclined towards a certain belief. Mathilde Loisel wants to be rich, and when she is invited to a ball her desire to appear affluent intensifies. When her husband suggests flowers as decorous accessories, she declined, demanding a diamond necklace. This eventually leads her to borrow a necklace from her opulent friend, of whom Loisel is jealous. At the ball, Loisel is jubilated, for she believes the diamond on the necklace to be genuine and not, as is the actual case, artificial.
The outward appearance does not verify and substantiate what its body really is. Highlighted by the three stories discussed above, the way something seems to be is not always the same as it actually is.
Prompt: Is it sometimes necessary to be impolite?
Impoliteness is crucial in certain circumstances, for it can accentuate one’s pertinacious beliefs and unwavering wills and safe one from otherwise inevitable turmoil. The veracity of this claim is exemplified in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men and The Pearl.
The idea that impudence can avert one from perennial fight is depicted in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men. George and Lennie, like any other Americans during the Great Depression, want to pursue the American Dream; they desire for their own land and be their own masters. However, since both of them do not have ample money to purchase a piece of land, George and Lennie decides to work until they earn enough cash in a farm, whose owner has a son named Curley. Upon their arrival, Curley notices the vulnerability of Lennie who has some kind of mental disabilities; an inveterate ruffian, Curley irritates and bullies Lennie in many ways. Lennie, however, does not retaliate, because it is incumbent on him not to cause any trouble that may results in the two of them being ousted out of the farm. But in the end, when Curley has positively crossed the line, George tells Lennie to fight back so that Curley would learn his lessons. By doing so, Lennie ends further torments that may otherwise follow him forever. Although Curley is the proprietor’s son, it is imperative that Lennie responds Curley’s impoliteness so he would be bullied no more.
Like the story from Of Mice And Men, the storyline from The Pearl of the same author highlights the fact that impertinence is important in specific situations. When Kino, the protagonist of the novella, discovers the most prodigious pearl the villagers have ever seen, he agrees with his wife to sell their treasure for a significant sum of money to cure the baby boy, Coyotito, and to fulfill their other hitherto impossible dreams. However, when Kino travels to the city to bargain with the dealers, he eventually finds out that every possible buyer conspires to depreciate the price of his pearl. Consequently, Kino has to be impolite to state the fair price with a resolute determination, and when that does not work, to extricate himself from these iniquitous dealers and traverse back empty-handed to his village. Had Kino remained passive and compromise to the price set by the buyers, he would have surely been cheated.
In a given situation, politeness can be detrimental. When one finds oneself in such aforementioned situation, one must be impolite to stand for one’s own principles or to put an end to an incipient quarrel as accentuated by John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and The Pearl.