<p>But, to circle back to my first message, if I were a CB grader, every essay better than “The” would get a 12 (and I would be quickly bounced out for inconsistency with the grading rubrics).</p>
<p>My honest appraisal (former teacher) is that you sound like a very bright middle-schooler trying to impress the grownups.</p>
<p>Your idea is good, but it reads almost like an afterthought in your introductory paragraph. </p>
<p>You used good literary examples, but you didn’t really make a definitive case for either. Trying to stuff vocabulary words into an essay detracts from the meaning, which is more important than making it sound good. I have no quarrel with the use of multi-syllabic, archaic or seldom-used words, as long as they contribute in some way to the tone of your essay and are consistent with your theme.</p>
<p>The conclusion was weak, and the essay overall was too short. I would have given it an 8 also, but I don’t grade with the same rubric. </p>
<p>One last piece of advice (which you haven’t asked for, but gratuitous advice seems de rigeur on CC): you are obviously an intelligent person and a good student. There’s no need to try to show it all in a single essay. If you had several great new outfits, you wouldn’t try to wear them all at once, so people would know you had them, would you? Restraint is a virtue, and shows maturity. That’s advice from Louisa May Alcott, speaking as Jo March in Little Women. It was true then that you don’t have to tell everything you know ALL at once, and it’s still true! :)</p>
<p>“My honest appraisal (former teacher) is that you sound like a very bright middle-schooler trying to impress the grownups.”</p>
<p>i didn’t exactly get that impression. but i do think u went a little overboard with the vocab there…</p>
<p>how did u reproduce this exactly? lol…</p>
<p>On the SAT II writing there was always an essay.</p>
<p>@Arachnotron, no, not in December 1970. It was a looonng time ago. :)</p>
<p>A 7 or an 8. Your body paragraphs could have been expanded. Even if I write 4 paragraphs in 25 minutes, I still write a min. of 8 sentences for each body. A lot of your analysis is surface material. I want to say 7, but the SAT readers aren’t that harsh. An 8 at highest. If it’s a 9, I’ll be surprised. Wow me now.</p>
<p>I agree with most of the posts on here. Tossing in multisyllabic words for the hell of it is stupid and makes you sound superficial (like a ton of people I know), but I think the essay graders are pretty light and like I said earlier, it probably got a 10.</p>
<p>Are you ever going to update this and let us know what you got?</p>