Score My SAT Essay (Comments Welcome)

kostathegreek
Sun, 28 Dec 2014 02:34:18 +0000

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

“When people form opinions about someone or something, what affects them most is not substance but style. In other words, the way something appears or is presented is more important than what it actually is. This principle affects how people look at their leaders and their lives, the books they read, the products they buy, and even the subjects they take at school.”

Assignment:
Is style more important than substance? 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.



Response:
In today’s society, it appears as if style is more prominent than substance. People tend to ignore substance and quality, and only scrutinize superficially. Acclaim, applaud, and extol seem to go to the most popular or to the most “stylish”. This futile method of evaluation has proven to be malevolent, and even deleterious.

History has told this story countless times. Take for instance Adolf Hitler. He was an excellent rhetorician and elocutionist who wound up mesmerizing, brainwashing, and ultimately stimulating a whole country, if not empire, into killing six million Jews. Attendees of his speech often stated on interviews that they can’t recall the content of his speeches, they solely remember his assertive, aggressive, but persuasive oratory skills and flamboyant hand gestures. Not to mention the Ancient Greek martinet Draconas, who convinced the country that he would be the optimal leader of Greece. However, people were not able to see past his words, and suffered as Draconas lead the nation into a period of misery. He eventually lead to the coining of the term “draconian.”

Can it be that man kind has not learned form this mistake? It is presumably so. Last year Greenville, MI has elected the inexperienced Theodore Stuyvesant as its mayor. Despite her inexperience, she was a great elocutionist with a “style” liked by many voters. However, after a year the voters realized their mistake. They were greatly absorbed by her “style” that they neglected to take into her account her inexperience. She led to a rise in crime, she failed to conduct park renovations, and began to practice nepotism. It was the first time this city reached its nadir.

It is evident that when examining an opinion, or anything of such consort, one must be prudent, and use judicious methods of scrutiny. "Style" should be overlooked, as it is not "style" that suffers with you when things go wrong. It is not "style" that sleeps with you at night during animosity. Only heaven knows if, or when, we will repeat this mistake.