Please check w/ my essay

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Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:14:40 +0000

Once again, I don’t know enough about SAT grading to give you specific information there. But here’s how I would respond to this essay.

Assignment: Does an individual’s profession define his or her character and moral fiber?

“Can a doctor be a malicious person? Can thug mobs fooling around on streets everyday be docile at heart? They can.”

I really like that opening. I might say “gang members” instead of “thug mobs”, though.

“All the things happen.”

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Are you expanding on “They can”? I’m not sure you need to.

“Therefore, an individual’s profession cannot define his or her character and morality.”

I really like this, too. If you dropped “All the things happen” I think you’d have a very striking opening paragraph.

“If knowledge is spared aside, morality is what still left in each person. People climb on the ladder of promotion chiefly by their knowledge.”

So you’re saying that a person is knowledge plus morality? I’m not sure I would go that far. But I do think that your underlying point, which I take to be that knowledge and morality are different things, is a good one to start with. The idea that people will do what is good so long as they know what is good is a longstanding one in Western civilization. You’re challenging that idea. What if you said, “If knowledge is set aside” – that’s more idiomatic than “spared aside” – “morality is still lef in each person. People climb the ladder of promotion” – again, idiomatic – “chiefly by their knowledge”?

“Nixon,a former US president, showed his evil intent vehemently in the Vietnam war. George W Bush, the present one, have left Iraq citizens leave in fear in the meaning less destruction for over four years.”

What strikes me about this paragraph is that it’s not clear what you think is evidence of Nixon’s and Bush’s immorality: with Nixon it seems to be intent, but with Bush it seems to be the outcome. Would Nixon be as immoral, in your view, if he intended to do the right thing? Would Bush be as immoral if someone else had intervened and the people in Iraq hadn’t suffered so much? And while Bush both started and directed the war in Iraq, Nixon inherited the situation in Viet Nam – why do you choose Nixon here instead of Johnson?

It’s not that I think you ought to explain all these things in the essay, but that I want to trust that they are clear in your mind. I’m not sure whether they aren’t clear in your mind or whether you are having trouble communicating that clarity, but it just seems odd. Anyway, let’s suppose we just edit what you have here: “Nixon, a former US president, vehemently showed his evil intent in the Viet Nam War. George W. Bush, the present one, has left Iraqi citizens to live in fear in the meaningless destruction for over four years.”

“Though both may achieve high IQ scores, they did not attain very high degrees in their moral success.”

IQ scores, in theory, give us an idea of aptitude, not knowledge. (Like the SAT, they test aptitude by testing knowledge under the theory that the knowledge they’re looking for is freely available to all of us in our environments. But that’s another story.) Since you say knowledge, not aptitude, allows us to “climb the ladder of promotion,” you don’t want to use IQ here. I’d suggest something like “Though both acquired a great deal of knowledge, we can see by their actions that their morality did not keep up with their intellect.” That’s obviously a major change to that sentence, and it may not be the way you would want to go, so please understand that it’s just a suggestion.

“Have you ever notice the antagonist in most Western comic books come from an upper position, or at least have a so- called “good job”? The scarecrow, Batman’s foe, is a lawyer. He was not by any means, humble, however. Instead, he stood up against Batman- the vigilante of Gotham and finally be beaten by our protagonist.”

I think this is great. I love this shift. I would just edit it for things like language: “Have you ever noticed that the antagonists in most Western comic books come from upper positions, or at least have “good jobs”? The Scarecrow, Batman’s foe, is a lawyer. He was not at all humble. Instead, he stood up against Batman - the vigilante of Gotham - and finally was defeated by our protagonist.”

“Lawyers, doctors, football players or even drivers and sweepers, all can be complacent or kind at heart. That is why we have the word “snob” in the English language to insinuate pretentious folks.”

I would probably expand this section. You’re bringing in the idea that people who haven’t climbed very far up the ladder of success may be moral or immoral, and that people who have climbed may also be moral. Until here, you’ve focused mainly on the idea that people with a lot of knowledge may not have a lot of virtue.

Actually, I might go back and start bringing this idea in in the previous section: am I correct that Bruce Wayne himself is a rich and successful man? (I’m just going to confess here: I’ve seen some of the episodes of the old live-action TV show, and that’s about it.)

But in this section I might make reference to people like John Gotti and Tookie Williams, or possibly your family members. I have an aunt I might bring up here if it were my essay.

“To encapsulate, profession can only define a person’s knowledge yet fail to do so with virtue. This holds true through history, animation, movies and almost every aspect that reflects the nature of society. There is no book to judge, especially on the spiritual side.”

Again, I’m not exactly sure what you mean in the last sentence, but I think the rest of this paragraph is great. It says exactly what you’ve been arguing for.

As I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t know how they score these kinds of essays on the SAT. I don’t think the essay the way you wrote it is likely to score all that well, though. You’ve got some problems with the language, and it wasn’t easy for me to follow when I read it fast, which I know is how the SAT graders are going to be reading.

But when I go through it slowly, there are some real strengths here that aren’t immediately obvious. I especially like your introduction and conclusion: they’re very strong and with the possible exception of one sentence in each (I was confused about those) they say exactly what you want them to say.

I hope that as you continue to practice, you are able to build on your strong points and make them more apparent to people who are reading quickly. It would be a shame for the graders to miss what’s great about your essays the way I almost did.