Can somebody critique my essay?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Its from CB bluebook practice test #2.</p>

<p>Can you please give me stuff I should improve on?</p>

<p>Chances, like those of technological advances, aim to make our lives easier and therefore better. Although these changes succeed in making our lives easier, they do not necessarily make ourbetter, as demonstrated in examples of literature and history.</p>

<p>In the New York Times bestselling novel The Devil Wears Prada, young and lively Andrea Sachs lands a supposed ‘dream post-college job’ as an assistant to Runway magazine’s editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly. As an assistant, Andrea must succumb to Miranda’s every whim, which can range from flying to Paris and conducting orders on a phone to a New York staff to picking up dry-cleaning. To help Andrea, her company, Elias-Clark, provides her with a chaffeured car, a cell-phone, and reimbursements for all her purchases. Even through Andrea is provided with numerous luxuries that a normal employee wouldn’t even dream of having, her task of attending to a phantasmagorically malicious woman is not made any better.</p>

<p>History is also a blatant example of change aiming to help but resulting in harm as in China’s Cultural Revolution. During the Revolution, Mao Zedong proposed a radical movement to abolish all aspects of tradition and ancient customs to allow for new installments. His armies of Red Guards stormed through Chinese households, confiscating and destroying anything deemed to be ‘fourolds’. Mao Zedong also declared the closing of schools and universities, and ordered the students to write dazibao, or harsh accusations about friends, neighbors, and even family members who were rumored to be following old tradition. The Chinese Cultural Revolution actually harmed the people of China because an entire generation lost their education, and many family heirlooms, photographs, and artifacts linking the people to their past were destroyed. </p>

<p>Thus, change can be viewed in light of a saying: “You can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink.” Similarly, change can make life easier, but it cannot make life better.</p>

2

<p>did you try the online grading? if you did, what score did they give you.</p>

3

<p>I’m going to give 5/6 on this one. Remember, I’m just one person so there will be people who disagree with what I think.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I don’t like your conclusion much. It’s not that it’s poorly written. In fact, it used old proverb-like phrase to end the paragraph but I just don’t think that example of taking horse and relationship of chance go together. This is completely up to the reader though.</p></li>
<li><p>Second reason about Mao Zedong. You have to understand that although Mao Zedong did start CCR, he was mainly influenced by Jiang Qing, who was his wife and a leading member of Radical party. So, the main part of CCR was for Mao Zedong’s power. Mao Zedong ordered young men to hold “Red book” which contained words of Mao Zedong. Seeing all those, I don’t even see how CCR, or “chance” you mentioned, could have made people’s life easier. I’m seeing opposite of it.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Even I didn’t know about CCR, the reader can easily see that CCR was a BAD thing which obviously didn’t make people’s life easier. So, here’s one tip I suggest: use careful reasons. I’m saying this because good reasons and evidences will make your essay even better.</p>

<p>Hope it helps.</p>

4

<p>what’s the prompt?</p>

5

<p>thanks for the advice :slight_smile: the prompt is something about technological advancements aiming to make life easier and therefore better.</p>

6

<p>devil wears prada is probably not the best choice of example</p>

7

<p>yeah i know, but i was stuck in a foreign country with no computer and an empty mind, and the only thing i could pull out of mybrain was one of my most recently read books. once the school year starts, i’ll have better examples of literature at hand…</p>

8

<p>actually id go with a personal example over a crappy literary one. so no need to think up some obscure cerebral literary reference…</p>

9

<p>really? hm. my PR instructor advised literary, historical, and current event examples over personal ones…but in the CB book i saw some amazing personal examples.</p>

10

<p>yeah actually if you take a look at some 12 essays you can see that as long as you write well, any legitimate example can work (but stuff like devil wears prada is just more difficult). review classes can be expected to trumpet really dry, formulaic essay-writing. don’t listen to your instructor :slight_smile: it got me a 2390</p>

11

<p>I have a quick question, one of my instructors said that you can use movies as examples but somehow I doubt that. Was she right?</p>

12

<p>You can use it, but remember your audience. Will they understand the connection you’re trying to accomplish? </p>

<p>I’d stray away from it. If you think you can write about it, then good ahead! Make a splash! </p>

<p>:)</p>

13

<p>I’d rather use personal experiences than movies. But anyways.
An 8-9. It’s focused and flows nicely, but the intro is repetitive. You used easier and better in really close proximity to each other. Your conclusion is sufficient to get the upper half of the scores, but it’s too short and abrupt. And it’s best not introduce another idea (the horse and water analogy in this case) unless you explain it thoroughly. </p>

<p>You could also use some more advanced vocab.</p>

14

<p>i pretty much quickly skimmed over your essay but when you write about devil wears prada vs china…it sounds very uncorrelated. i mean basically you’re writing about pop culture vs. historical information and that TOTALLY weakens your essay. yes devil wears prada is a book…whether you could call it literature…is a little bit difficult. basically your china example is good but it doesnt fit with dwp…so im going to give it a 6/7</p>