Essay in response to SAT prompt

coolkidoncc
Sat, 02 Sep 2006 22:33:29 +0000

This is an essay I wrote in response to a real SAT prompt.

Prompt: Are we free to make our own decisions or are we limited in the choices we can make?

We are limited in the choices that we can make. The world is not a fair place and it’s a tough lesson to learn. It is life and we are not able to make every choice that we can. The poor man can not just get up one day and say that he wants to buy a mansion. He is not able to. The little girl with cancer is not able to say that she is going to live just because she wants to. I learned this fact the hard way. In the end, we as humans have only so much we can choose from.

The poor do not have a lot to choose from. Throughout history theories have been formulated that stated that hard work alone is what distinguishes the rich from the poor. This theory has been proven wrong, and I disagree with it. Life throws curveballs at us that we might not be ready for. The poor man might have been a rich man one day, but life dealt him blows that forced him into poverty. He did not choose this life for himself, life choose it.

The little girl did not choose to have cancer, but she might choose to have a lot of treatment to deal with the illness. But the catalyst for this life-changing event was not a little girl’s decision, but an outside force. So then what is this girl to do? She has to fight the diseases, thus making chooses. But she was not able to make this choice on her own since her current condition forced her to take that action.

Some actions are out of our control and I had to learn that the hard way. It was a spring afternoon in Texas, and I was about five years old. A disease was rampant in the Lone Star State and my parents were forced to cut our vacation short. We had planned to stay there for a month, but an outside force forced us to cut our vacation short by about three weeks. I had made a lot of friends in that one week period and I was having a good time. But life had other plans for me. I had to say good-bye to my friends and that was hard. I did not want to leave but I had no other choice.

A poor man, a little girl, and a boy on vacation have a lot in common: they are all limited in the choices they could make. Some people would criticize this statement by stating that these people had choices and were free to make their own choices. They would point to life choices as reasons, but I would have to disagree. A lot of things in this world are unpredictable and a person does not make everyday choices based on what he wants. He has to deal with the fact that he has to deal with what life throws his way. Once he realizes this and accepts this, only then can he live life to the fullest, without having to worry whether or not a certain choice was limited or not.