Please grade my SAT essay? :)

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

I would greatly appreciate anyone giving my practice essay a score on a scale of 1-12. Critical feedback and areas for improvement would be wonderful, too!

For reference, this prompt is from prompt #2 of the June 2015 SAT (found here: https://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-reasoning/prep/essay-prompts)

P.S. I took this essay as a practice under timed conditions.
P.P.S. Yes, I know I misused the word “withhold” in the last paragraph.

[Prompt]
Is it possible to maintain conflicting loyalties?

[Essay response]
In the real world, nothing is ever only black or only white. Instead, answers to life’s most puzzling questions lie in a gray area, combining elements of one end with the opposite end. Creating this gray balance or neutrality between a positive and negative is how seemingly contradictory ideologies or events can be appeased and eventually taken advantage for the betterment of society. Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire and Malala Yousafzai’s global image prove that conflicting loyalties can be maintained and even be beneficiary.

One cannot begin to imagine the horrific life of a young boy whose only known support group abandoned him and his starving family in the frigid winters of the Mongolian steppe. Such a boy lived, and his name is now known as Genghis khan (GK). Gk used his traumatic experiences from his youth to bolster a growing network of regional loyalties that eventually became the Mongol Empire. Haunted by tribal traditions, such as kidnappings, raids, and abandonments, GK was determined to give his followers a much more egalitarian backbone. While this egalitarianism was radical in Mongolia at that time, GK managed to stay true to his own moral views and cultural traditions, such as the Mongol’s traditional emphasis on military mobility and the modern embracing of egalitarianism, to build a global phenomenon.

Malala Yousafzai is one of the contemporary symbols of education and women’s rights. However, given Malala’s background, her position seems contradictory. Surrounded by Islamic religious fanatics, Malala, a Muslim herself, should have never reached this coveted position, if it had not been for her following her own moral compass and standing up for what she believed was true. Today, Malala, while embracing her Muslim roots and empowering the voiceless, Malala is erasing the stereotype that Muslim women are the servants of men.

Malala and Genghis Khan remained loyal to their individual loyalties while withholding aspects of religious and cultural expectations respectively. As a result, both of these people highlight the importance of seeing both sides of an argument and compromising to step forward in society, ultimately assuring that maintenance of conflicting loyalties is necessary for advancement.

2

Anybody?

3

If I read this quickly like the readers will, prob 9-10. It looks well written, has enough SAT Vocab words and good structure to pass as really good. But I don’t see the conflicting loyalties in body paragraph 2. The conclusion makes it clear what the conflicting loyalties, but by then, the reader has already made up his mind: 9. 10 only if the reader reads the conclusion.

The length is prob what gets you the 10.

And the sentence “Such a boy lived, and his name is now known as Genghis Khan (GK)” is really awkward.

4

Here’s a present for you!

I second the 9 estimate. One 5 and one 4. Things that prevented you from getting a 10:

  • The relationship between your thesis and your examples is not tight enough. Your body paragraphs nicely address the prompt, but your thesis misses the mark
  • The first sentence starts with “in the real world.” This phrase lacks any sort of meaning, and makes me question whether you see an essential connection between intellectual inquiry and real-world events

What prevented this from even being considered for a possible 12:

  • Your body paragraph topic sentences don’t summarize your body paragraph arguments. Rather, you begin with what should be the second sentences
  • You conflate conflicting loyalties with the pursuit of truth. For the Malala example, this isn’t an issue, as promoting women’s rights does align with truth / normative conceptions of the behavior we ought to promote. For GK, yes, he experienced raids, kidnappings, etc., and you mention his supposed egalitarian leanings. I suspect this was just pretense for his will to power, a way to legitimize his reign / conquering. What I’m trying to say is you don’t have to even address the moral rightness of GK’s actions - don’t even go there. Just talk about why he was torn, as you did was Malala.

Suggestions for improvement:
-Shorten up the intro. First sentence = thematic observation, second sentence = thesis. That way, you can focus your energies on coherent topic sentences in body paragraphs. (Thesis should link directly to TS1 and TS2. If you do that, use some nice words, and write a decently long essay, you guarantee yourself a 10, and put yourself in the running for a 6 from one of the readers).

  • The concluding sentence of your body paragraphs should start with "Thus, X was Y because Z. Overarching clarity will get you that coveted 6.

For my second and final SAT sitting, I focused on incorporating the suggestions from above. I got two 6s. Makes getting an 800 pretty easy (though I had no MC mistakes either). PM me a second essay that incorporates my suggestions, and I’ll grade it for you. Keep going - you’re going to do very well!

5

I realize that one reader can’t himself assign a 9, but I’m predicting that for the reasons above, you’ll get one 5 and one 4.

6

Thank you very much! I will definitely send you another essay, but how could I have rewritten my thesis in your opinion?