Failure is the key to success.Many a times,people achieve great success only to learn from the failure THAT they encountered earlier.Several examples from history and literature prove that.
One of the biggest examples where failure played a major role towards success is the war between is the Romans and the Greeks in 1027.The Romans and the Greeks were fighting over the Mediterranean island of Goldisphega.In the early stages of the battle,the Romans suffered great loss from the battle,as they underestimated the number of Greek soldiers and didn’t pay attention to positions of the soldiers and were therefore attacked by surprise.After the Romans retreated they looked back at what made them fail the battle.They improvised on battle strategies and this time took greater number of soldiers.This example clearly shows how the Romans used their failure to to find the route to success.
Another important example can be from literature from Animal Farm by Goerge Orwell.In Animal Farm,the animals team up to overthrow their cruel master and take the farm for themselves They plan an attack on the farmer while he is sleeping but are striked with failure when they accidentally wake up the master’s guard dogs who then attacked the animals.When the animals later looked back at their at failure,they realised that they had to plan a more silent and subtle attack to kill the master,so this time they sent the hens to poison the master and kill him.Because the animals learned from their failure,they were able to plan a more successful attack.
A thorough analysis of the Greek-Roman war and Animal Farm clearly proves that failure can surely lead to success.
You need spaces after your punctuation. Periods and commas ALWAYS have spaces between them and the next word.
After seeing the prompt, I immediately thought of video games like Dark Souls. But that’s beside the point… (although one could still incorporate video games in the essay)
Your examples are alright but as @bodangles said, you need spaces after punctuation, and there are some grammatical errors (*many a times, and use struck instead of striked) and awkwardly-worded phrases.
Also, I am confused about your final sentence:
I’m not sure if the above analyses are considered thorough, considering you can write entire books about the Greek-Roman war, or entire essays about the environment, allegory, or other themes in Animal Farm. Furthermore, there is a huge difference between “clearly proves” and “suggests” or “gives evidence” - in mathematics, you can clearly prove a theorem using other theorems/lemmas and techniques, but that is not so clear-cut here.
I got your point…Those are some serious mistakes…Will improve on them.
But how much would you score it out of 12 ?
Thanks for your suggestions
Probably a 6, for the above reasons. Keep in mind that I am not an “SAT essay” expert.
Alright thanks
I’m not going to focus on the pervasive problem of not including spaces after punctuation, since it’s already been brought up. Other than that, the biggest issue with this essay is that there are scores of grammatical errors. There are a few issues with the content as well, but for the most part, they do at least support your argument that failure leads to success, which is a lot better than other essays that, say, have content completely unrelated to the argument.
Starting with the introduction, my immediate response is that it’s a bit too short. You may wish to follow a standardized introduction (written by yourself, of course) in preparation for the SATs that take up four to five lines, as this will help you save precious time in the test. An example of how to start: “Many people believe that success is not necessary for failure. I, however, am of the belief that failure is paramount to achieving success.” From there, it’s usually a good idea to elaborate a little bit on your main idea (in your essay, this would be “Many a times… encountered earlier.”), followed by a statement that you will attempt to demonstrate your case through the examples you will use. Four sentences in total to make a clear, concise introduction that serves its purpose well. A tip: You should name the examples that you’re going to use - so in this essay, you should say something like “the war between the Greeks and the Romans in 1027” and “Animal Farm by George Orwell”. I’d also advise you NOT to use the word ‘several’ as you have in your introduction, as you are really only using two in your essay.
In the first paragraph of your body, we have a few grammatical errors. An ‘example’ is not a place, and so you shouldn’t use “One of the biggest examples WHERE” but rather “One of the biggest examples WHICH”. Also, ‘biggest’ brings to mind physical size, which isn’t really relevant for an example. Perhaps you can replace it with ‘strongest’. There’s a noun-number agreement error in the third sentence - since there was more than one Roman, they should have suffered ‘great losses’, not just a ‘great loss’. In addition, the third sentence is much too long and doesn’t flow very well. My recommendation would be to put a period after “positions of the soldiers” and merge “attacked by surprise” with the fourth sentence to form something like “After being ambushed (same meaning as attacked by surprise) by the Greeks, the Romans retreated…”, which would form an overall better-sounding sentence. In addition to the grammar issues, there is one problem with content as well. So the Romans improvised their battle strategies, so the Romans took a greater number of soldiers. So what? Were the Romans actually successful this time? You fail to mention that, which is a key proponent of your essay! It might be obvious, but remember that you have to assume that the marker has substandard level of intelligence. Make it absolutely clear that the Romans were successful after learning from their failure so that the markers cannot fault you whatsoever, and you’re golden.
Now the second paragraph of your body. Uhhh, have you read Animal Farm? Yes, they do team up to overthrow their cruel master of a farmer, who you should mention as being called Mr. Jones. They do succeed in their first time trying to overthrow Mr. Jones, though. They also don’t… Kill him with with poison. If you’re going to use well-known literary works such as Animal Farm, then it would be in your best interest to not make things up. Even though the example does support your case, I can’t help but knock you back a point due to the fact that I happen to know exactly the events of Animal Farm. Also, some diction and relative pronoun errors: ‘struck’ instead of ‘striked’, and ‘which’ instead of ‘who’ when referring to guard dogs.
Your conclusion is weak as well, seeing as it only has one sentence to reiterate your stance. Not that there’s anything wrong with reiterating your position on the argument, but examiners would prefer to read something more to sink their teeth into. Maybe after that sentence, you could follow up with a bit more elaboration, such as: “No matter how many times we fail, it is always imperative that we get back up and try again.” One more sentence of elaboration, anbd we have a perfectly good conclusion right there.
5/12. Remember to fluff up your introduction and conclusion, avoid the grammatical errors I mentioned, and use an accurate second example, and your score will shoot up in no time.
Thanks.That’s a very thorough explanation.
Looking forward to improve.