<p>If you have free time and some experience with this, can you please grade and comment on my practice SAT essay? Let me know if you’re doing it out of 6 or out of 12, and it’d be great if you can give some feedback on things that I can improve in my writing. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Prompt: Is there always another explanation or another point of view?</p>
<pre><code>In regards to any situation or belief, there can always be another explanation or point of view. An explanation or point of view that is generally accepted may not always be correct, and even so, other alternate explanations or point of views may simultaneously be valid. As demonstrated by the example of the discovery of DNA to be the genetic material, there can always be alternate explanations or other points of views.
Before the incredible capabilities of DNA—deoxyribose nucleic acid—were understood by scientists, it was treated as merely another substance found in the human body and left unexamined. Then, through further research, scientists limited the substances that can serve as genetic material down to two—proteins and DNA. Comparatively, much was known about proteins at the time, and miserably little about DNA. Plus, proteins seemed to have far greater variety, as they could be made of 20 different amino acids compared to the 4 different nucleotides that make up DNA. Thus, in the early 1900s, the vast majority of scientists simply assumed that proteins, not DNA, were the genetic material in living organisms. However, when a pair of scientists named Hershey and Chase conducted an experiment in which they labelled the protein coat of bacteriophages with radioactive sulfur and the DNA in those bacteriophages with radioactive phosphorous, they found, to their utter surprise, that radioactive phosphorous—not sulfur—was present in the bacteria infected by these bacteriophages. Thus, Hershey and Chase concluded that DNA was the source of genetic material, not proteins, contrary to the mainstream belief in the scientific community. Through their experiment, Hershey and Chase found an alternate point of view and a different explanation for genetic inheritance, one that they adamantly supported despite the numerous nonbelievers in the scientific community. Thus, their experience shows that alternate explanations and points of views are certainly always possible, and that it is important to be open to these different perspectives. Just because a perspective is generally accepted does not necessarily mean that it is right, or that no other perspectives are possible.
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<p>*Note: I wrote this on standard college-ruled lined paper, and it’s only 1 page (exactly) in my handwriting. Is that too short?</p>
