Final essay, need help shortening it

Colleges & Universities Princeton University
1

<p>i PROMISE i won’t post any more essay questions ><
Its around 400 words now and i need to cut it to around 250~300,
Thanks all!
Oh and this is the prompt: “Which accomplishments have given you the most amount of joy”</p>

<p>“Here is the assignment for this week”, the professor said as he was handing out piles of paper he’d prepared for the weekly Uni-math class. “As with all the assignments, this one isn’t compulsory, however I recommend that you do these to keep up with the coursework… Yes I am talking to you Mr. Kim” he said in a half-threatening and a half-facetious tone. “And by the way, I’ve included a bonus problem at the end. Only a couple of students in my class over the years have been able to solve it, I’ll be interested in how this class fares. See you all next week.” After the class I went home and placed the assignment on that special corner of the table, where all my ‘things-to-do-if-I-really-have-nothing-to-do’ lay. </p>

<p>The week went by normally, but the day before the next uni-math class I stumbled upon the assignment as I was cleaning the desk. Seeing as anything was better than cleaning the desk, I flicked through the assignment until I came to the problem the professor was talking about. At a first glance, it looked impossible; lots of ‘x’s and ‘y’s with exponentials that were too scary to think about. As I was about to put it away however, I saw something within the problem. I worked on what I saw but came to a dead-end. Not wanting to admit defeat I tried another angle, but again to no avail. Now I was getting frustrated, but in a positive way – if that were possible. I tried the problem again and again, until I heard a knock on the door. It was mum saying that she’d been calling for me to have dinner, but I hadn’t been answering. ‘Dinner already?’ I thought to myself; after all, I’d started the problem only a few hours after lunch. I looked at the clock and saw that it was well past six; I’d been on this for three hours at least. After dinner I wrestled with the problem for a few more hours until I made a breakthrough. I was filled with exuberance as I realised that I was going to solve this problem, and the numbers just starting ‘clicking’ in naturally. I called my friend in excitement to say I solved the problem, but he replied sarcastically, “You didn’t care aids or anything, it’s just a maths problem.” Nonetheless I could truly say that that was one of the happiest moments in my life.</p>

2

<p>1) cure instead of care
2) I’d avoid saying that I’m lazy, even though I also have a dedicated corner =)</p>

3

<p>Ta for the typo error.
I contemplated on whether I’d put that laziness factor in, but i figured that its the truth, and adds a bit of a light tone to the essay. Do you have any ideas on how to shorten it?</p>

4

<p>hmmm. you could cut out the bit about how many days you left the homework untouched, about your teacher handing the assignment out (i.e. all the dialogue in the beginning) and about calling your friend and being called to dinner. the whole thing is about how you solved a math problem, and the joy it gave you. you should therefore focus on that aspect of the story more than anything else. if the prompt says “accomplishments” then you should link your solving math problems to your love of math or whatever. my advice would be to re-write the whole thing, focusing on this math problem and WHY solving a math problem is the most joyous moment in your life.</p>

5

<p>Words like facetious and even exuberance stand out. Regardless of whether theyre in your vocab, the flow of the essay stops when I read those words. It’s an informal essay and something tells me if the adcom and you were talking mano a mano you wouldnt have said facetious.</p>

6

<p>happiest moment of your life…isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration?</p>