Please Rate My Essay, Questions about the Writing Portion, "Writing Buddies", Anyone (Testing Dec)?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Hello everyone! I would greatly appreciate it if someone were willing to rate this essay (out of 12). The prompt is as follows:</p>

<p>Is it important to question the ideas and decisions of people in positions of authority? 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>It is very important to question the ideas and decisions of those in positions of power and authority. The struggle between compromising between one’s own ideologies and those of another has marked growth and change throughout history, and has been shown to be an immense conduit to personal growth. Examples such as American Revolution, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and my own religious experiences epitomize the importance of questioning those in power.

The American Revolution immediately comes to minds as a powerful historical example: what could be better than the story of the American Patriots rising up en masse to fight the tyranny of the British Monarch? The reality is slightly more huanced, but yields even a better perspective. Before the shots fired at Lexington and Concord, most Colonists of the time abhorred anything to do with separating from the British empire, by far their largest trading partner, even going so far to pass the “Olive Branch Petition” in 1775, right before war broke out. Yet as the impact of the Stamp Act and Intolerable Acts in creased, the colonists found themselves truly questioning whether or not they wished to stay under the sovereignty of the King, and thus George Washington and his ragtag army was able to defeat the British at Yorktown.

Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God shows a more interpersonal example of questioning. The main character of the book, Janie Crawford, goes through two husbands, running away from one and watching the other dip, before finding her true love. With her first husband, Janie feels no love yet. She acquiesces to her Nanny’s plea to marry, as her husband would provide security and prosperity. Questioning her place in the marriage, expected to work and without love, Janie runs away with another man. This new man is brash, bombastic and power-hungry, to the point Janie again began to question her choice of marriage. It is only then she finds her true love, someone who truly understood her feelings.

This struggle can also be intrapersonal. There was a time where I doubted my belief in my religion, finding the teachings too superficial, too unrealistic to be taken as “divine word” and followed absolutely.**
</code></pre>

<p>A couple of notes:

  1. I stopped at the mark (**) due to running out of time. I was going to finish with points about how questioning my religion helped me reestablish and even strengthen my belief in my religion. Will it affect me big time if I don’t finish my points when the idea is (kind of) out there? Also, I know I spent way too much time planning/outlining, and the opening paragraph took me ~7 minutes. How do y’all write a quick but still substantive opening paragraph? It took me forever to find something that I could add on without sounding repetitive.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Right now my writing sounds super formulaic. This was my first time practicing this but I still feel I could have done better… Any tips? </p></li>
<li><p>Anyone looking for a “writing buddy” or “group exchange” - exchange 2, 3 essays a week for each other to grade? PM me please!</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks so much in advance!</p>

2

<p>This is a solid 10 essay, and it would be higher had you actually concluded instead of adding on an unnecessary third concrete detail. Even if the conclusion is only one line, it’s exponentially more important than a personal example, so think about doing the 2 concrete detail approach if you consistently run out of time.</p>

<p>Honestly, in SAT essay writing, formulaic not bad. You formed a great stance on the prompt and chose nuanced examples. Just make sure you’re making the proper connections to your stance (it’s an argumentation piece after all), by impacting your points. Your examples never clearly state or extrapolate upon the historical/personal/etc growth and change that you initially established, which hurts you because while the examples themselves are fantastic, they make no attempt at connecting to the bigger point that your essay is supposed to make.</p>

<p>I can’t help with #3, but wish you best of luck on your SAT preparation!
All in all, good job. You’ll be more than fine by December.</p>

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<p>@extremecouponing‌ </p>

<p>Thanks so much, I really appreciate it!</p>

4

<p>Thesis: 5 Direct and to the point. To improve your thesis, you need to add a “because” or “since.” You do sort of say the “why” later in your intro, but you need a good summary of it with the thesis together in one sentence. Also, do include a hook in your intro. The thesis is usually at the end of the intro.</p>

<p>Organization: 3; an essay with 5 paragraphs usually gets you a 4 or 5 in this category. You weren’t able to finish, so that damages your score. To improve your score, make sure you use transitions such as “furthermore” even if they do sound cliche and elementary, and obviously, finish the essay.</p>

<p>Diction: 5; wonderful use of words. A 6 here is really hard to come by, but if you really want that 6, just use more hard words.</p>

<p>Grammar: 5; your grammar overall is very good, but you have some small ones near the start which really bring your score down in this category. Although they may have been typos, you made a run-on error and used a plural form incorrectly in your first two paragraphs, which is where it really matters. </p>

<p>Sentence variety: 5; you’re pretty good with sentence variety. This category is similar to diction because it’s super hard to get a 6. </p>

<p>Overall, that’s a 5 out of 6. I would say that’s a 9 or 10 out of 12 because you didn’t finish the essay. A conclusion is actually really important. If you are running out of time, cross out that last line and add a one line conclusion. Although that will also decrease your scores on organization, it should leave a better impact on the grader’s mind, so you might be able to get a better score.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

5

<p>Oops, I didn’t notice the grammar errors when I posted this - I had a friend type it up for me as I was going to be away from my computer for a while. I don’t believe I made those errors when I wrote the actual essay during my practice test. Thank you so much for your input @Woandering‌ !</p>

6

<p>Oops, I didn’t see the 1, 2, 3 you asked at the end. </p>

<p>I can help you with 1 in PM, later.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Formulaic is definitely fine.</p></li>
<li><p>I’d love to be a writing buddy. I’m taking the SAT again in December. What about you?</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>No problem! December is also when I happen to be taking it. Do you mind PM-ing? Thanks!</p>

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<p>@ashgabat You’ve had 10 posts; I’m not sure if you’re allowed to PM yet. I’ll PM you now, but post a few more times, and PM me back when you have the chance.</p>

<p>By the way, I might be pushing it back to January depending on how it goes. We can just exchange essays up till December though.</p>