Rate and Grade my SAT essay!

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

Hi guys, after spending the past days reading the critiques of the initial essay I had written, here is the culmination of my efforts. Hopefully this one is good enough to score me a 10 (maybe even a 12 :D) but lets see what you all have to say! Thanks and please as always, critique what must be changed/ improved. Also I was told to stay away from personal examples but for this prompt, I couldn’t think of any literary sources?

Assignment: Does working with others lead to better results than acting as an individual? 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.

While ostensibly working with others may seem beneficial for all participants involved and lead to better results, in reality the best results will come by working individually. The results of the Milgram experiment and group projects in school attest to the fact that in a group setting, participants lose a sense of responsibility and feel less need to contribute the the success of the group.

Stanley Milgram decided to put the question of whether or not participants in a group lose their sense of responsibility to the test with his famous Miligram experiment. Participants in his experiment were asked to shock another person who they could not see but hear. After successive trials, the results Milgram found were astounding. Even after the person being shocked cried out for the participant to stop, the participant continued after being told by Milgram, the authority figure, to continue. As such, the results show that in a group setting, individuals tend to be less responsible for their actions since they have someone to blame it on.

The results of the Milgram experiment can be see today in the classroom setting, where students are sometimes asked to group together to complete assignments or projects. As a current 11th grader in a school system where group work is prevalent, I can personally attest to the lack of responsibility by members including myself. After being given the assignment, other members and I put it off until the night it is due. Then we scramble and put together a powerpoint or report in the hours we have left. Though at times, the projects turn out decently, most times they are covered with grammatical errors, wrong information, and lack of sources. However, even then I do not feel responsible for the grade I received and feel it is the other members of the group that have brought my grade down. However, when given an individual assignment to complete, I start it the moment I get home and plan extensively before crafting the powerpoint. This is because in this kind of scenario, I have no one to use as a scapegoat if I receive a poor grade.

The results of the Milgram experiment and my own experiences working in a group setting show that there is indeed a loss of responsibility by members. However, at times group work can also be beneficial because one can brainstorm ideas with the other members instead of using only one’s own knowledge.

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Anyone??? I have to take the sat on wednesday and would love for a critique!

3

I’d say 4/6. This is a solid essay, but the last sentence in your conclusion is a huge blow to your score: your thesis is “the best results will come by working individually” and you need to restate that in your conclusion. “However, at times(,) group work can also be beneficial because one can brainstorm ideas with the other members instead of using only one’s own knowledge,” contradicts your thesis at the most critical point- the last sentence the grader reads before grading your essay. If you can fix that point and go out with a bang, then I’m sure you could get an even better score.

4

The essay almost scored a 10, but unfortunately I must agree with what clpony7 said above that the conclusion ultimately stymied the essay from receiving a high score.

Let me start with the Introduction. Great use of the word ‘ostensibly’ here to replace the more common ‘initially’ - gives a good first impression. Other than that, it’s an introduction that does its job well and makes it clear what your stand will be throughout the essay.

Nice job using the Milgram experiment as an example - you couldn’t have chosen a better example to augment your case. You described the example in a concise way that allowed readers who don’t have a clue on what the Milgram experiment actually is to understand the necessary specifics and see how it supports your case. Just a few pointers - no need to repeat ‘in his experiment’ in the second line, and use ‘whom’ instead of ‘who’ in the third line as ‘person’ is an object. You might also want to add in just one more “hard” word in the same tier as ‘ostensibly’, just to remind the reader that yes, your vocabulary is still as strong as ever.

Your second example is a bit weaker than your first, which is an unfortunate consequence of using a personal example. That’s not to say it’s bad - it very clearly justifies your stance. I especially like how you linked the first example with the second so seamlessly. A few more grammatical errors: In the sixth line, you don’t need the comma in front of the first ‘times’. In the seventh and eighth sentences, you start the sentences consecutively with ‘However’. You might want to mix it up a bit with the eighth sentence - maybe say something like ‘It’s a different story when I’m given an individual assignment to complete…’? And lastly, you mentioned that you couldn’t think of any literary examples to use to bolster your case. You might want to try Lord of the Flies by William Golding, an excellent novel that showcases the problems of working in a group.

Your conclusion, like mentioned previously, is weak compared to the rest of your essay. You spent the entire essay building up your belief on why working in a group is disadvantageous compared to working individually, only to go against the grain of your argument and say that working in group might have benefits. That’s a big no-no - always make sure you take a complete stance, never be even a little bit on the fence. If you could only conclude with a conclusion that leaves the reader satisfied with what he or she read (some people do this by echoing some quotation that ties in well with the rest of their essay; others do it by re-emphasizing their point using greater diction), then I not only would have given you a 10, I might have even raised it to a 11. Give a better second example that comes from, say, literature or history, and it would have been a resounding 12.

9/12, but it’s a great essay nonetheless, one that almost got a 10. Keep up the good work, and all the best for your test!

5

Thank you for such an incredible and well detailed analysis of my essay. I wrote about potential benefits of working in groups to qualify what I had said beforehand, but I take it that would be bad for my essay and argument overall. Thank you, but do you believe that one should use literary or historical examples over personal ones and if three examples would be better than the two I had?

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My personal opinion is that literary and historical examples are better than personal ones. The main problem with the personal examples is that people usually can’t use them to their strength to fully substantiate their stance. A literary or historical example, especially if it’s well-known, allows the reader to better understand how what you’re saying proves your point.

Three examples might sound better, but always remember that it’s a race against time in the essay section. Would you sacrifice quality over quantity? With only twentyfive minutes, introducing a third example is bound to take a hit on your first and second example and conclusion as you try to squeeze everything in twentyfive minutes.

7

Hey guys, can anybody please grade my essay, too? It’s one of the first ones I write and I’d like to know if I’m on the right way :smiley: Any advice and critique would be greatly appreciated! :slight_smile:

Many people believe that our government should do more to solve our problems. And yet expecting that the government – rather than individuals – should always come up with the solutions to society’s ills may have made us less self-reliant, undermining our independence and self-sufficiency.

Assignment: Should people take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general?

    It is of paramount importance that society in a country tries to take part in decision-making and problem-solving in order to stay intellectually active and independently thinking. The dangers of an all-powerful state in which constituents are completely reliant on the government to take care of them can be exemplified through the Vietnam War and its effect on U.S. society and a series of protests in 1980s Bulgaria.

The Vietnam War epitomizes a dichotomy between a nation’s interests and these of the government. The U.S. government saw the war through the lens of the Cold War – Soviet Communist aggression against South Vietnam, and thus a conflict to be won at all costs. However, people in the U.S. saw it as an expensive and rather disadvantageous war which drained money from Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society reform program – a government’s undertaking far more beneficial to the nation as a whole. Standing for itself, society took action and sparked a chain of protests against the war, which put pressure on the ruling party and eventually caused withdrawal of troops. Taking matters in their own hands, Americans solved a problem ongoing for almost a decade and fought for their social interests against those of the government.

     A series of protests in my homeland of Bulgaria also helps to exemplify the need for self-reliance in a society. In the 1980s Bulgaria was still a Soviet satellite and a Communist country. When in 1985 toxic gases from Romanian factories veiled my hometown in a green shroud of chlorine, thus endangering the well-being of hundreds of thousands of citizens, Bulgarian government turned a blind eye to it. As gruesome as it may sound, this was actually expected, as the totalitarian governors of Bulgaria and Romania, also a Soviet satellite, were protecting each other’s interests – which were naturally above those of the people. However, citizens fought for their rights and solved the problem themselves through a series of courageous protests – in fact, the first ones in Communist Bulgaria – until their demands were met.

To conclude, as we observe throughout history – both American and Bulgarian – citizens of a country should play an active role in solving problems concerning them. Not only in the U.S. and Bulgaria, but all around the world, what constitutes an issue for the nation, may not always be seen as one by the government.