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<p>Hi… if anybody could read & score this essay 0-6 or 0-12, that would be great. Help/criticism is welcome as well :)</p>

<p>Assignment: What motivates people to change?</p>

<p>++++++++++++++++++++</p>

<p>Humans are in a state of perpetual change. We are constantly changing to try to improve our position in life; we feel pressure from within that motivates us to undertake these changes. Regardless of any external factors, what really incites change in people is motivation from within. This idea has been illustrated innumerable times throughout literature and in history. Motivation to change comes from within.</p>

<p>In the novel The Samurai’s Garden, by Gail Tsukiyama, one of the prominent characters, Sachi, undergoes substantial change. At the beginning of her life, she is a beautiful girl, but unfortunately very callow. She is unable to appreciate anyone’s inner beauty. By the end of her life, this fixation on superficial things evanesces entirely, and in its place lays a thoughtful, selfless personality. However, this monumental change does not come about because of anybody or anything else. During the course of her life, she is able to reassess everything, and realize how wrong her values had been. This one-hundred-eighty degree change in her outlook comes about simply because of internal motivation.</p>

<p>Another manifestation of the idea that change comes from within took place at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the Russian Revolution. Because of a rigid, out-of-date social system, life was difficult for most Russians. As a result, some members of revoultionary groups did try to incite a revolution among the peasants, but they were largely unsuccessful. The obvious reason for that was the fact that people do not change because of what others say to them; on the contrary, they change when they feel motivation to do so. The Russian monarchy was eventually overpowered when a group of self-motivated individuals, the Bolsheviks, took charge. More and more people joined the cause because they felt it was time for a change.</p>

<p>In conclusion, when people change, it is because they are drawn to do so from within. People cannot be forced to change, as was illustrated during the Russian Revolution and in the novel The Samurai’s Garden. Outside forces have relatively little effect on people. When someone feels in his or her heart that it is time to change, that is when the change occurs. Motivation to change invariably comes from within.</p>

2

<p>great range of vocab. i think they’ll give you an almost perfect score.</p>

3

<p>I think a 10.</p>

4

<p>glucose, y not a 12? </p>

<p>This essay seems better than many i’ve seen with got 12’s =/.</p>

5

<p>I think it’s good…don’t get me wrong, but personally, I have never seen a 12 that only includes 2 different kinds of examples. I’ve always seen 3. I know that there probably are probably essays with 2 examples receiving 12s, but I haven’t seen one, yet.</p>

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<p>If you loo kthrough some of the “12 essay example” threads, a lot of ppl received 12’s for using 2 examples, especially when the examples are lit and history.</p>

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<p>i only had 4 paragraphs with 2 examples (Gandhi and Einstein) for the OCT 05 testing and got a 12 on the essay. MC is worth way more though i only got 3 wrong on the MC and still 760</p>

8

<p>I’d give this a pretty high score – maybe 10? There are a couple of awkward sentences, and one major grammatical error (lay instead of lie… I know this is really common but it drives me nuts!). However, I think what’s really keeping it from being a 12 is the lack of a major argument. Your argument is: “change comes from within” but you support it with two examples… without any kind of analysis or general argument. Examples are not proof, and when you only have to examples (as strong as they may be), you haven’t made a convincing argument. You end the essay with a very assertive, “motivation to change invariably comes from within,” but you haven’t shown that this is an invariable rule, only that it can be “illustrated” in one historical incident and one work of fiction.</p>

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<p>11 or 12, because the readers are going to be taking 2-3 minutes looking at it, and it seems great on a short lookthrough and that’s what counts.</p>

10

<p>I used one personal example (Essay was 4 paragraphs overall)and got a 12 on the January test.</p>

<p>I’d give this essay a 10 because of two reasons.

  1. The examples are not clearly defined as proof for thesis, you’re merely describing what happened, without much analysis.
  2. I’ve found with sample essays that a trend for a 12 also includes slighty critquing your own thesis, Ie. an “except” case. For this essay I might add that outside influences do not cause a person to go through change unless that experience is extremely profound, then add a little example. Basically, it displays the strong analyitical thinking that they are looking for. This is not the only way to do it, but it has worked for me.</p>
11

<p>Well written, I’d give it an 11 because I do not like to give out perfect scores.</p>

12

<p>Thanks for the replies…</p>

<p>ILoveBrown, I thought I might have messed up that lay/lie thing… I can never tell. Especially on this one I forgot to put it in literary present tense until the last 2 min, so I was frantically changing verbs :D</p>

<p>And a lot of you said it lacked analysis… what kind of thing might you say that would be analyzing? And it’s true that I didn’t really PROVE my point, but just provided examples, but how would one prove something like that?</p>

<p>Also, is it OK that the last sentence in my intro paragraph, my thesis statement, was virtually identical to my concluding sentence?</p>

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<p>Well, I’ll give it a 10-11</p>

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<p>Lay is a transitive verb. You lay SOMETHING down. Examples:
“I lay the pencil down on the desk.”
“I’m tired. I think I’ll go and lay my head down.”</p>

<p>Lie is not a transitive verb. You lie down, but you can’t lie SOMETHING down. Examples:
“The pencil lies on the desk.”
“I’m tired. I think I’ll go and lie down.”</p>

<p>Hope that clears it up a little. :)</p>

15

<p>Sooo, would I be correct in saying that the past participle of “lay” is laid (I had laid my pencil down) and the past participle of “lie” is lain (After having lain down for an hour…)? or am I totally wrong?</p>

16

<p>This might receive an 11. I don’t agree with another poster’s point that you must have an “except case” in order to earn a perfect score. One can write a 12 essay with examples that all strongly support one position. In fact, I advise my students to always stick with only “one side of the fence.” The language overall was quite good (“lays” should have been “lies” and there was some slightly awkward language a couple of times), but the essay could have used just a few more details and a bit more analysis. Otherwise, a very good effort.</p>

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<p>^ Thanks. It’s hard to get more details in given the limited space…</p>

<p>Anybody up for looking at another one?? I don’t know if it’s any more analytical or not.</p>

<p>Assignment: Do new technology & innovations make our lives easier?</p>

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<p>A brand new computer! A camera phone! A PDA! Everything you need to make your life easier. Unfortunately, this is not usually the case. Although we invent, market, and purchase all kinds of products in hopes that they will simplify and improve our lives, they often just lead to even more trouble and misery. Whether in terms of newly-developed weapons or just in our everyday lives, new technology often just makes things worse.</p>

<p>World War I is considered the first mechanized war. All sorts of new killing devices were employed, from virulent poison gases, to the use of airplanes to hurl bricks at enemies. However, instead of these more modern devices of war causing an expedient, more harmless victory, World War I ended up being the worst war the world had ever seen. When war was initially declared, people were cheering, but by the time the nightmarish war drew to a close in 1918, many Europeans became stubborn advocates of pacifism. Modern warfare was so destructive and catastrophic that people were determined to avoid any future war at all costs. New technology had not made life easier; it had simply made it more horrific.</p>

<p>Changes intended to facilitate life backfire in less dramatic ways, as well. Day after day, my life is bombarded with this new “technology”, driving me ever closer to insanity. At 6 AM, my psychedelic-colored, multi-function alarm clock beeps, jarring me from repose. If I have a few extra minutes to spare in the morning, I sit down with my TI-89 graphing calculator, trying to comprehend yet another inscrutable operation that might get me that one extra point in my math class. After spending twenty minutes trying to start up the family laptop to no avail, I’m forced to rush to school to make it to the library in time to print out my French composition. In an endless cycle, we respond to our hectic lives by getting even more gadgets, but they ultimately have the opposite effect.</p>

<p>In conclusion, our lives are not changed for the better due to machines and technology. In times of war, these innovations just lead to even more needless deaths. In a normal routine, they make our lives exponentially more complicated. Technology does not make our lives easier.</p>