I am taking the SAT on October 3rd. In the June session I got a 6/12 on the essay. I would very much appreciate it if you graded this essay:
Fighting deadlines
The struggle against deadlines is real. It is also real that deadlines teach valuable lessons about managing time. That is why I think that they are useful. I will recall one particular time when I barely won the battle against the deadline and what I learned from it.
February 28 2014. Two PM. With just two hours until the deadline, our laptop stopped!
I was part of a team working on a space design project organized by NASA. Carelessly, we decided to leave the finishing details for the last day: to print the project and send it to the United States for judging. We met that morning and only needed to merge all chapters into one file and print it. It was at this moment that our laptop decided to sabotage us. It shut down and thus the unsaved work was lost!
Panic started to settle in. It was 3:30 and the last plane to Los Angeles left in half an hour. Clearly we could not make it in time. By now I recall starting to ask myself: why do we need this deadline? It is not useful at all! However, this is not the proper mindset. Thus, I learned a lesson: the deadline can be useful in the way that it gets the best out of you and also makes you a better time manager.
In an almost miraculous fashion, we found another flight leaving at six PM and the project arrived in time in the USA. Not only that, but we also won the first prize! We learned from this event and when we participated again in 2015 we started work on the project much earlier. In this way we did not encounter the difficulties of last year’s experience.
This goes to show that there is a useful side to a deadline. While it might seem an obstacle at first, ultimately there is something to learn from it. And the feeling of beating the deadline is definitely special, at least for me!
Well without the prompt question, I don’t have much ways to guide you here but I can leave a few tips. Your examples are very vague and by a scan I can see that you only used one example—a personal experience. However you need to go more into detail in your examples and relate it to your thesis. When writing an SAT essay, it’s better to incorporate more examples by using different sources other than your viewpoint such as from literature, history, or science. I would say this essay would get a 6/12. If you read what types of essays that Collegeboard wants to see, then you’ll be able to format your essay like so.
I am adding another essay; grades and feedback would be very much appreciated.
The prompt is: Does loyalty require unconditional support?
Loyalty can be expressed in many ways. I truly believe that all forms of loyalty not only require unconditional support, but are also synonymous with it.
One great example of loyalty can be found in my country’s past. At the end of the Battle of Independence, a small brigade of Romanian soldiers remained. These brave men were under attack, but they fought back in order to defend their flag. The flag if the country to which they were so loyal. The Romanian soldiers came out victorious. Their loyalty made fight heroically and support their country unconditionally.
There also suggestive examples of loyalty in many books. For example, in “The Mysterious Island” by Joules Verne, five Americans become stranded on a deserted territory in the Pacific Ocean. Out of these five, it is Cyrus Harding, an engineer, who earns the respect and the loyalty of the others. Upon landing on this island via a balloon, Harding is injured. Despite this he manages to command his fellow castaways who build the beginning of a mini-colony. After recovering, the engineer uses his vast knowledge to create a prosperous society. He could not have done it without the unconditional support of his loyal friends.
An emotional real life story is that of the dog Hachiko, later transformed into a successful movie. This dog in the akita breed was so loyal to his owner that it waited for him at the train station as he returned from work. And Hachiko did this every day. Then came one day when its owner passed away and did not return. Such was the love for its owner that the dog kept coming at the train station. And it did so for nine years. Hachiko loved and supported its owner unconditionally.
Loyalty cannot even exist without unconditional support. Whether it is defending your country and flag, following your leader or loving your owner, it is loyalty at the heart of it all.
I am back with another attempt of writing the perfect essay! Feel free to criticize!
Prompt: Are people overly influenced by unrealistic claims and misleading images?
Unrealistic claims and misleading images are abundant in our lives. Newspapers would publish unimaginable articles in order to increase sales. Television shows would display anything in order to make their viewers addicted. What the media is doing is abnormal: implanting misleading thoughts in our brains. This goes to show that there can be a negative side to unrealistic claims. However, I believe that when presented in the form of science fiction, these claims and images become useful.
Writers Joules Verne and Isaac Asimov were my childhood favorites. Two of the greatest science fiction writers ever, they often described plenty of unrealistic claims and images. However, they molded them in such a shape that they became intriguing, in a good way. Asimov’s robots, Verne’s submarine and rocket ship were extremely far-fetched ideas. At the time when they were written, they were utopias. Now they are realites. The science fiction genre was the spark to my thirst for knowledge and passion for science. I can honestly say that if I had not read the works of these writers, I probably would not have pursued the study of science in my short life so far. Therefore, the unrealism of these books had a benefic influence on my evolution.
When diving deeper into the creations of Jules Verne, we find examples of characters who accomplished great feats by thinking unrealistically. Such is the case in “The mysterious island”, where five Americans are deserted on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. One of the characters, Pencroft, was the big thinker. His plans seemed extremely unlikely to succeed at first, but his boldness to think big turned out to be useful. He dreamed of manufacturing guns and building railways, telegraphs and ships to sail across the ocean. When thinking that at first they could barely survive, these ideas sounded impossible. However, they had a positive influence on the evolution of the castaways. Pencroft, repeating his crazy wishes, planted a seed in the minds of his fellows: although it is unlikely, why not try it? Thus, Pencroft’s unrealistic way of thinking was a catalyst for him and his friends.
Sometimes unrealistic claims and images are used badly. But when used right, they motivate us to dream big and fulfill our dreams. The beneficial influence of thinking big and bold is priceless. The old saying “Shoot for the moon; even if you miss you will land among the stars” is definitely true in this context.