<p>Can you guys please read my practice SAT essay and critique me on it? Thanks.</p>
<p>Prompt:
Many people believe that our government should do more to solve our problems. After all, how can one individual create more jobs or make roads safer or improve the schools or help to provide any of the other benefits that we have come to enjoy? And yet expecting that the government - rather than individuals - should always come up with the solutions to society’s ills may have made us less self-reliant, undermining our independence and self-sufficiency.</p>
<p>Should people take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on the issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations. </p>
<p>My essay:</p>
<p>->People should take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general. Regular citizens can work together to solve national issues that are not in the government’s domain, which was displayed during the controversy regarding the documentary Bully. People should also take more responsibility for solving problems that specifically affect their communities because they can help people in ways that the government can’t, which can be seen through local volunteerism.
->Bully, a documentary about the harsh realities of bullying in schools, was originally deemed too inappropriate to show in schools by the MPAA. Many Americans saw this as a problem, since they believed that students should be informed about bullying and its effects. An online petition was started that demanded the MPAA to allow the showing of the film in schools. Millions of Americans signed the petition, and the MPAA changed their minds and allowed for the viewing of Bully in schools. If it were not for the collaboration of millions of ordinary citizens, this problem could not have been fixed. The controversy regarding Bully was not a national problem the government could fix; it was a problem that required the responsibility of ordinary citizens.
->Local volunteerism allows people to help other people in ways that the government cannot. While some may argue that the government provides money and other relief programs to those in need, sometimes that is not enough. For example, in my city, there is a problem for high schools students called the Intersection, in which high schools students work with underprivileged elementary school students and teach them fun, enriching projects involving science, arts and crafts, cooking, and more. This kind of enrichment is not enrichment the government can provide; it is enjoyable, effective, face-to-face enrichment that solves a local issue in a fresh, creative way.
->Thus, national collaboration and local volunteerism of regular citizens have solved both national and local problems. The responsibilities taken by normal people in solving such problems have created effective changes that the government could never initiate.</p>