<p>“Do people stress too much on being practical?”</p>
<p>Bauhaus school’s idea “forms follows function” vs. classical view that art should be beautiful first, practical second</p>
<p>Hmm that’s all I can think of. =/ Maybe a personal example? Tough prompt.</p>
<p>^^^ You thought of that example on the spot?</p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p>maybe UFO can…</p>
<p>Haha well I’m in Acadec and we went over art history recently (just had a quiz on it today). A week ago I wouldn’t have been able to come up with that.</p>
<p>I thought of something else! It took me a while though. Those en pointe shoes by Alexander McQueen (RIP). Very impractical. You could say that people criticized him for those shoes. I don’t think he was criticized much because he was so well-respected, but you could say he was since the truth doesn’t matter for SAT essays.</p>
<p>Hm…maybe the utilitarian society depicted in Brave New World? The society is so concerned with what they think is “practical” that the citizens no longer have true feelings; their inward feelings and thoughts are crushed. Just a thought! :p</p>
<p>Maybe you could use the ENIAC computer. It was one of the first (if not the first) computers ever built and it essentially took up an entire room. The ENIAC only performed rather basic operations.</p>
<p>However, I’m not sure what the prompt means by “practicality.” Is it asking if people try too hard just to make something work, or if they try too hard to make something that works but is also easy to use, carry, distribute, etc.?</p>
<p>You can shape the definition of the word practical to suit a specific topic.</p>
<p>The first thing that I thought of, for instance, was practicality in the context of human survival. While things like iPods and computers are things that aren’t really necessary to human survival (maybe necessary to teenage survival), we as humans have put a lot of resources and energy to creating superfluous (superfluous in the context of this hypothetical essay) objects for the sake of luxury.</p>
<p>You can spin this idea by disagreeing with the prompt. We, as people, have spent too much time and money investing in things that we do not need. Instead, you can state that we should be directing that energy into the crises of the world, like poverty, hunger, and disease.</p>
<p>Perhaps a little extreme, but it’s definitely workable: no need to fear about sounding too gung-ho in an SAT essay, after all. Plus, you can spin the prompt regarding “practicality”, as previously stated, into another doable topic if you can see it from multiple perspectives.</p>
<p>what about this prompt, "Should schools help students understand moral choices and social issues? " I can’t think of any historical/literature examples for this prompt</p>
<p>The first literary example that popped into my head is Stepan Oblonsky from Anna Karenina. He lives the luxurious and expensive life of the Russian aristocracy – frequenting an expensive club, treating his friend Levin to an expensive restaurant on a whim, and suffering debts from multiple sources – and eschews the more practical life of his best friend, Levin, who lives in the country and disdains the extravagant city life.</p>
<p>For the social issues prompt, I thought of these:</p>
<ol>
<li>Sex-ed classes in school</li>
<li>Darwinism and evolution (i.e. Scopes Monkey Trial)</li>
</ol>
<p>For the social issues one, an (albeit barely relevant) literary example could be Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter. Because the Puritan society is one in which the youth is taught – in part by the colony-mandated public schools – that adultery is an abhorrent sin and that anyone who commits it should be vilified, if not hanged, the society immediately turns on the vulnerable Hester Prynne regardless of extenuating circumstances. The homogeneous outrage toward her is a negative side effect of the school’s teaching of moral issues instead of letting students decide for themselves.</p>
<p>With regard to historical events:</p>
<p>For the social issues prompt, you have a lot of things to choose from. The most recent example that I can think of is the overturning of Proposition 8. Many schools are pretty wary about approaching gay rights issues: in this hypothetical essay, you could argue for more exposure to gay rights issues in politics. Exposure to the “real world” and the political movement around us would serve to heighten and increase awareness in the world, and all of that happy stuff.</p>
<p>Slavery is another clear example of a possible historical reference.</p>
<hr>
<p>For literary references:</p>
<p>Literary examples include Mark Twain’s notorious/famous Adventures of Huckleberry Finn–Twain vehemently attacked and disparaged racist ideology in that novel, a novel that helped to shed light on the treatment of blacks during the era of slavery. </p>
<p>Uncle Tom’s Cabin is another narrative that comes to mind when I think about the social issues regarding slavery.</p>
<p>Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye is a classic novel that exemplifies typical societal plagues–issues of sexuality, society as an antagonist, conflicting views regarding religious vs the world, etc, etc.</p>
<p>Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead does a nice job of portraying the fallacy behind garnering fame and fortune by means of crude and unethical methods. The novel also portrays the detrimental effects of greed, spite and envy (which comes back to the moral choices bit of the prompt).</p>
<p>Cheers.</p>
<p>Hi guys, I’m wondering if you can also help me spin this prompt:</p>
<p>It often seems as though we truly respect only people whom we do not know, such as leaders and other public figures. It is much more difficult for us to respect people who are familiar to us and are part of our everyday lives. The fact is that if we were to develop close personal relationships with these strangers that we look up to, we would see that they are only ordinary people, just as flawed as we are.</p>
<p>Does familiarity prevent people from developing or maintaining respect for others?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>yes, please help!</p>