<p>Here is my essay (exactly reproduced below). What do you think it received, on a scale from 2-12?</p>
<p>Is acting an essential part of everyday life? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations. </p>
<pre><code>“Acting is a quotidian activity for most. From the forced delight displayed when receiving a horrendous gift to being a sycophant towards teachers, it is clear that acting is an everyday part of life for many. It serves as a means to avoid potentially awkward social situations and as a way to ingratiate oneself with others. However, people are generally much happier expressing their authentic emotions and desires.
Stephen, from James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, constantly acts in his youth and adolescence. He feels no connection to Catholicism or his Irish heritage, yet throughout his boyhood years up until he dabbles in the priesthood, he presents a falsely pious and nationalistic front to his family and teachers. As an adult, Stephen drops the ruse and immediately becomes much happier. He feels a greater and more real connection to others and to the Earth because of his lack of deceit.
In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby seems to be the quintessential success of the American Dream. However, near the end of the novel the reader discovers that his flamboyant personality is a masquerade. The hopping parties and swank restaurants that he constantly attends with a debonair air are only some of the theatres in which he acts the part of a happy man. Later, he dies alone and it is revealed that most of his life was a sham; his put-on role prevented him from pursuing that which he wanted most in life: Daisy.
Although acting may be a useful tool in many everyday situations, it should not be employed regularly. To do so would be to live a life that is not your own, but rather an amalgam of the views, hopes and opinions that others have of you.”
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<p>I honestly don’t know exactly… possibly a 8 or 9. </p>
<p>Too short, and the evidence to support your conclusion, while appropriate, is lacking… You should write an introduction and an adequate conclusion. Over use of jargon, especially unnecessarily in the opening.</p>
<p>i go with 8 or 9 as well. those big words are enough to fool a reader.but ur essay is way too short, perhaps u should hav polished on ur conclusion abit to make it a 10. because of length, iim gona stick with 8 ~</p>
<p>10 you use great vocab, but it’s way underdeveloped. The examples are great, and since college board grades leniently I’d say it that it would be rated above average, but its not developed enough to receive an 11 or 12</p>
<p>First, let me say that I am not about to criticize anyone’s essay composed in 20-25 minutes, under high pressure, at 8 am or even before. It’s impressive to write anything coherent, in those circumstances. </p>
<p>I’m old enough to have avoided the essay entirely, even though I took SAT II Writing. The test only included essay questions in certain months-- and the month I took it, the whole test was multiple choice. I can still remember my relief. I think the best essay I could have produced within the time limit is “The.”</p>
<p>But I suspect that a few useful general conclusions can be drawn from this essay, and I will post them with the goal of helping the OP and maybe others:</p>
<p>1) If you write reasonably well in English, write as much as you can. I think this essay is simply too short to receive a high score.</p>
<p>If I’m wrong, and this was a 12 essay, being used as an example to show that short essays can score well, please skip the rest of my comments.</p>
<p>2) Be very careful when citing much-studied books. Remember, many of the essay graders are high-school English teachers. The overwhelming majority at least took high-school English. The Great Gatsby is one of the most popular books for high-school lit classes. Your essay readers are likely to have an excellent command of this book.</p>
<p>The College Board specifies that students are not to be penalized for errors of fact. You might be able to say that The Great Gatsby was written by James Joyce, without a deduction.</p>
<p>But here’s the problem: Your readers will have their own preferred interpretations of The Great Gatsby. They will be committed to their interpretations, and they might even be passionately committed to them. If your interpretation disagrees with theirs, even though they are not supposed to deduct points for errors of fact, it is very likely to affect the scoring.</p>
<p>In my own preferred interpretation of the book, Gatsby is actually the MOST authentic character in the novel. He has made money from shady Prohibition-related enterprises, yet, paradoxically, he is the most honorable character in the book. People suspect that he was not honest about studying at Oxford (too much pink in his wardrobe for that), yet, in fact, he did study at Oxford in the immediate post-WW I period. Gatsby was not prevented from pursuing Daisy by the role he was playing–to the contrary, he WAS pursuing Daisy.</p>
<p>So, if your essay readers hold similar opinions, they are likely to be quite riled up, by the time they reach your conclusion. It’s bound to affect your score.</p>
<p>I’d recommend picking books that are less commonly studied.</p>
<p>3) Use words cautiously. Use uncommon words very cautiously.</p>
<p>I’m of two minds about starting the essay with “quotidian” in sentence #1. On the one hand, I knew what it meant without looking it up. But I suspect that this is not true of 100% of the essay readers. And by Murphy’s Law, if there are any readers who don’t know the word, your essay will have been graded by both of them.</p>
<p>This word “quotidian” is used very infrequently by native English speakers. Shakespeare used the word “quotidian” in As You Like it. On the other hand, I believe I’ve seen estimates that Shakespeare’s vocabulary was about 80,000 words, which dwarfs the vocabularies of most English speakers.</p>
<p>The word “quotidian” is used correctly and to good effect, in the essay. The quickest way to run into difficulty with uncommon words is to use them incorrectly, or even just awkwardly. And that did NOT happen here.</p>
<p>And yet . . . there is something about its choice that seems calculated to impress. This could backfire. You might actually have done better to use “everyday.” (But then, of course, you’d have to use a different word where you did put “everyday.”)</p>
<p>4) To the extent possible, limit your conclusions to statements that have already been supported explicitly in the body of your essay. Aside from the issue of the interpretation of Gatsby, you have provided two strong examples of false fronts and their disadvantages. Stick to that. In your final sentence, you bring in the “views, hopes and opinions that others have of you.” But the false fronts that you’ve cited were self-generated by the characters who were presenting the false fronts; they were only implicitly reflecting the hopes or opinions of others. </p>
<p>Remember that the essay readers are reading fast. If your conclusion refers to ideas that have been left implicit in the main essay, the readers will be seven essays further along before that thought even dawns on them. . . . too late, your essay was already graded. </p>
<p>Also, watch the use of concessionary clauses. You don’t want to be conceding too much, because that weakens the logic. If I had a “useful tool in many everyday situations,” I probably would be using it regularly!</p>