The best indicator of how an essay will score is its length.
The College Board and most scorers will vehemently deny this, but studies have indicated that a strong correlation exists between longer essays and higher scores. Why do long essays score so well?
One reason may be because of the ability of the graders. Given the huge number of SAT essays they must score, it is impossible for them to thoroughly read and dissect each one. Rather, it lies on you to "wow" them with a great essay that not only reads well but "looks" like a long, well-planned essay. A fairly long essay length will not hurt you, and it probably will improve your score.
Also, it may just be that a longer essay length implies more detail. Detail is the “meat” of the essay and makes an essay worthy of reading. Statements like “It is better to live in freedom than in fear” must be qualified by examples, personal experiences, expertise, and so forth.
Finally, students who have a proficiency in writing in the English language tend to score high because they effectively use devices such as figurative language, transitions, and idiomatic expressions. The statement “the King was a hawk waiting to swoop down on his next prey” is certainly more effective than “the King was very harsh towards opposition.”
You should keep the big three (length, detail, and mastery) in the front of your mind while taking the writing section. Of course, applying these principles is easier said than done. How do you go about writing an essay that employs all three of the principles?
The key is time management. You are given 25 minutes to write an essay that is evaluated on a scale of 1-6 by two graders. That being said, you are given those 25 minutes not only to write the essay, but to read the prompt and create a plan. With such little time to do so much, time management is of the essence.
Your strategy to success, therefore, revolves around time management. As soon as the essay section (Section 1) begins, you should quickly read the given quote and the prompt. Spend no more than two minutes doing so. Here is an example quote and prompt:
“…a nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.” – Alexander Hamilton
Is it immoral to sacrifice one’s honor for one’s safety or is it acceptable to concede honor in return for guarantees of peace? 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.
The prompt always includes a quote such as the one above followed by a short question (usually given as an A OR B choice). The key to these first two minutes is to understand how the quote relates to the question and what the two options or positions you can take are. In the above example, Hamilton basically purports that “it is better to be honorable and dead than dishonorable and safe.” Now, the question asks if honor is a fair price for safety. Can you make the connection between the quote and the question?
The two choices you can choose are:
Honor is a fair price for safety (not supported by quote)
One must not give up honor for safety (supported by quote)
Note that there is no “middle ground” – the worst thing you can do is choose a “wishy-washy” answer like:
Depending on the circumstances, it could be acceptable to sacrifice honor for safety but in other circumstances it is not acceptable.
This position may actually be the one you hold, but you are not writing to fulfill your beliefs – you are writing to score high. Only a strongly-worded, persuasive response will receive high marks.
Now that you have identified the two choices for response, choose one that you feel you have the most supporting evidence for. Note that the evidence you can use is from “reasoning and examples…” meaning that you must combine both your ability to logically reason with many descriptive examples.
For the next three minutes, you should briefly plan (either on paper or in your head) exactly how you will support your response. Whether you pre-write, organize, or “brain dump,” you should have at least some idea of where you will be going for the essay.
Once you have spent the first five minutes identifying the question and planning a response, you should spend the next five minutes writing a “killer” introduction. The introduction is the first thing that the scorers will read from your essay (they do not read pre-writing) and will therefore have the most immediate impact on your score. Graders are human and are prone to being persuaded by snazzy words, especially in the opening sentence. A grader would yawn at:
“You should never sacrifice your honor for safety.”
However, an opening sentence that is powerful is more likely to capture the reader’s attention:
“Death before dishonor!”
Within the opening, you should not only grab the reader’s attention, but firmly state your position on the given question. Do NOT be wishy-washy about it.
After these five minutes have been spent, write like a banshee for the last fifteen minutes. Trust us, the time will absolutely fly, and if you are doing a good job you will probably run out of time. Pour out examples, descriptions, quotations, conversations, statistics, and anything else that will wow your reader.
When time is ticking down, at around the last two minutes or so, you should spend some time planning and writing a brief conclusion. The conclusion need not be an amazing or eye-catching piece of work like the introduction, but it does need to be there. Effective conclusions generalize the point you have made to a wider context; ineffective conclusions simply restate your response:
Ineffective: “For these reasons, it is much better to die in honor than to live in shame.”
Effective: “…and, the next time we see the ruins of a forgotten city, we can remember that the inhabitants believed in a higher and greater order than their humble existences.”
In our next two lessons, we will examine some key strategies for writing good introductions, conclusions, and above all, detail paragraphs. Remembering the three goals we are working toward – length, detail, and mastery – will help you stay on track and excel on the essay section. In no time, you should be scoring high.
One reason may be because of the ability of the graders. Given the huge number of SAT essays they must score, it is impossible for them to thoroughly read and dissect each one. Rather, it lies on you to "wow" them with a great essay that not only reads well but "looks" like a long, well-planned essay. A fairly long essay length will not hurt you, and it probably will improve your score.
Also, it may just be that a longer essay length implies more detail. Detail is the “meat” of the essay and makes an essay worthy of reading. Statements like “It is better to live in freedom than in fear” must be qualified by examples, personal experiences, expertise, and so forth.
Finally, students who have a proficiency in writing in the English language tend to score high because they effectively use devices such as figurative language, transitions, and idiomatic expressions. The statement “the King was a hawk waiting to swoop down on his next prey” is certainly more effective than “the King was very harsh towards opposition.”
You should keep the big three (length, detail, and mastery) in the front of your mind while taking the writing section. Of course, applying these principles is easier said than done. How do you go about writing an essay that employs all three of the principles?
The key is time management. You are given 25 minutes to write an essay that is evaluated on a scale of 1-6 by two graders. That being said, you are given those 25 minutes not only to write the essay, but to read the prompt and create a plan. With such little time to do so much, time management is of the essence.
Your strategy to success, therefore, revolves around time management. As soon as the essay section (Section 1) begins, you should quickly read the given quote and the prompt. Spend no more than two minutes doing so. Here is an example quote and prompt:
“…a nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.” – Alexander Hamilton
Is it immoral to sacrifice one’s honor for one’s safety or is it acceptable to concede honor in return for guarantees of peace? 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.
The prompt always includes a quote such as the one above followed by a short question (usually given as an A OR B choice). The key to these first two minutes is to understand how the quote relates to the question and what the two options or positions you can take are. In the above example, Hamilton basically purports that “it is better to be honorable and dead than dishonorable and safe.” Now, the question asks if honor is a fair price for safety. Can you make the connection between the quote and the question?
The two choices you can choose are:
Honor is a fair price for safety (not supported by quote)
One must not give up honor for safety (supported by quote)
Note that there is no “middle ground” – the worst thing you can do is choose a “wishy-washy” answer like:
Depending on the circumstances, it could be acceptable to sacrifice honor for safety but in other circumstances it is not acceptable.
This position may actually be the one you hold, but you are not writing to fulfill your beliefs – you are writing to score high. Only a strongly-worded, persuasive response will receive high marks.
Now that you have identified the two choices for response, choose one that you feel you have the most supporting evidence for. Note that the evidence you can use is from “reasoning and examples…” meaning that you must combine both your ability to logically reason with many descriptive examples.
For the next three minutes, you should briefly plan (either on paper or in your head) exactly how you will support your response. Whether you pre-write, organize, or “brain dump,” you should have at least some idea of where you will be going for the essay.
Once you have spent the first five minutes identifying the question and planning a response, you should spend the next five minutes writing a “killer” introduction. The introduction is the first thing that the scorers will read from your essay (they do not read pre-writing) and will therefore have the most immediate impact on your score. Graders are human and are prone to being persuaded by snazzy words, especially in the opening sentence. A grader would yawn at:
“You should never sacrifice your honor for safety.”
However, an opening sentence that is powerful is more likely to capture the reader’s attention:
“Death before dishonor!”
Within the opening, you should not only grab the reader’s attention, but firmly state your position on the given question. Do NOT be wishy-washy about it.
After these five minutes have been spent, write like a banshee for the last fifteen minutes. Trust us, the time will absolutely fly, and if you are doing a good job you will probably run out of time. Pour out examples, descriptions, quotations, conversations, statistics, and anything else that will wow your reader.
When time is ticking down, at around the last two minutes or so, you should spend some time planning and writing a brief conclusion. The conclusion need not be an amazing or eye-catching piece of work like the introduction, but it does need to be there. Effective conclusions generalize the point you have made to a wider context; ineffective conclusions simply restate your response:
Ineffective: “For these reasons, it is much better to die in honor than to live in shame.”
Effective: “…and, the next time we see the ruins of a forgotten city, we can remember that the inhabitants believed in a higher and greater order than their humble existences.”
In our next two lessons, we will examine some key strategies for writing good introductions, conclusions, and above all, detail paragraphs. Remembering the three goals we are working toward – length, detail, and mastery – will help you stay on track and excel on the essay section. In no time, you should be scoring high.
POETRY ESSAYS:
would like this column to feature intelligent, informative, educational, entertaining, amusing, humorous and different essays and lectures pertaining to poetry. The topics can be about anything as long as it relates to poetry. Please, no rants or diatribes against other poets or books. Simultaneous submissions and previously published articles are okay. Please include 3 sentence bio, and if you have a poetry magazine, please include price and who to make check out to and address of magazine. Please proofread your essays and type in or copy and paste only your best essays directly into the essay column. When you submit your poem, you will automatically be sent an email confirmation where you will be asked to click on a link to confirm your submission, and your poem will be added to the website. This email may end up in you bulk mail, so don’t forget to check there also. This measure was added to each column to prevent spamming and unwanted messages. At the end of every month, I will remove objectionable essays. Please proofread and edit your poems before you finalize your submission. Ralph Haselmann Jr.
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Why choose our custom writing services? We’re registered with companies house, we’ve been in business since 2003 and we’re based in the UK. Having sold over 10,000 university essays and with over 3,500 native-English researchers working for us, our company is the market leader in the essays industry.
Essay on ( Did Germany cause World War 1 ?)
Although in the Treaty of Versailles Germany was to accept full responsibility for World War 1 this in not necessarily the case. Many factors have to be taken into account when considering the cause of World War 1. Germany may have been primarily responsible for the war but the other major powers must accept some of the blame for failing to prevent it. The conflict resulting from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinard should have been local and confined but due to a series of factors, militarism, the alliance system, nationalism, this one incident led to the greatest war Europe had ever seen. As a result of underlying hostilities the assassination led to a chain of events that ensured war on a wide scale. The alliance system developed by Bismarck for defensive purposes was one of the major causes of the war. These alliances however took a more aggressive tone in the hands of Bismarck"s successors. Also Bismarck"s alliance system was too intricate for anybody other than himself to maintain. While he was alive the alliances preserved peace but in the hands of William the 2nd these alliance were destroyed. Bismarck"s policy was to keep France isolated however with William refusing to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. France now had an ally thus resulting in the signing of the Franco-Russian Entente in 1891. In 1904 Britain and France formed a non-military alliance called the Entente Cordial. As a result at the outbreak of war Europe was divided into two armed camps, the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. The Triple Alliance consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungry and Italy and the Triple Entente was made up of Britain, France, and Russia. These alliances facilitated a political assassination sparking a World War.Along with the hostile divisions in Europe came the expansion of armies and navies thus leading to an arms race. This arms race was also precipitated by the increase in war budgets after 1900. Attempts to restrict the arms race, like The Hague conference in 1899 and 1907 failed due to mutual suspicion. The great powers also elaborated plans for mass mobilisation. It was thought that a war would be decided in the opening phases and therefore who ever got into the field first and assembled the largest army in the shortest time would have the advantage over it"s rival. When World War 1 began Germany ultimately mobilised eleven million troops,
France mobilised twenty percent of her population or 7,800,000 and Russia mobilised sixteen million men (White Heat 7). By 1914 the general staffs in Germany, France, Russia and Austria favoured war. Germany and Britain were involved in a naval race, which caused antagonism between the two powers due to Britain"s pride in her naval fleet and the necessity of it to maintain her Empire. She saw Germany"s continued expansion as a threat. Sir John Fisher of the British navy suggested that the navy should "Copenhagen the German Fleet" before it was too late (Europe Since 1870 105). Admiral Tirpitz of Germany opposed any plans for naval disarmament. Von Hotzendorf, the Austrian Chief of Staff, had been pushing for a preventative war against Serbia since 1906. Before World War 1 Europe was in the mind set for war, as I have described above, countries were expanding their armies and making plans for war. One of the most famous plans of war was the Schlieffen plan. This plan devised by General Von Schlieffen was based on mass mobilisation. It was believed that in the event of a war it would take Germany thirty-six hours to mobilise, France forty-eight hours and Russia three weeks (Europe Since 1870 105). The Germans would thus attack France first and then after defeating France go on to attack Russia. From these plans we can see that the Chiefs of Staff in Europe were expecting and planning for a war. The military leaders in Europe played a large role in influencing their governments to go to war. Jingoism also played a major role in the outbreak of war. Jingoism is extreme or excessive patriotism. The public was prepared for a war they wanted to show how powerful and glorious their country was. By 1914 there was nearly one hundred and eighty books written on the subject of major war in various different languages: Der Weltkreig (1904), depicted a German conflict with Britain. Le Queux"s The Invasion (1910) sold over a million copies (Reasons for War 2). These books prepared the public for the fears and the excitement of war. There was a sense of pure nationalism running through society, that never again would Europe display this kind of patriotic fervour, the conflict to come would destroy it (The Origins of War 5). Nationalism was also a cause of World War1. Austria"s unfair treatment of the minorities in her Empire caused the spread of Balkan nationalism. Serbia had been forced to hand over Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria to obtain her independence and due to Serbia flourishing as a nation the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina became restless under Austrian rule. Serbia encouraged anti-Austrian feeling which antagonised Austria and led her to annex Bosnia in 1908 breaking an agreement with Russia leading to the Bosnian Crisis. Russia"s policy of Pan-slavism also caused friction with Austria. Pan-slavism was the idea that all Slav peoples should be "freed" from Ottoman and Hapsberg control. These antagonisms led to an alliance between Russia and Serbia. There were also wars in the Balkans during the period 1912-13. Austria saw the assassination of the Archduke as the pretext to go to war with Serbia (1914 8). Alliances were formed during this period that would be still evident during World War 1.It is also thought that the system of government at the time also contributed to war. Capitalists saw the war as an opportunity to make enormous profits, thus leading them to put pressure on governments to go to war. At this time the arms industry was flourishing, there were Krupps in Germany, Armstrong and Withworth in Britain, Nobel in Sweden and Seinder in France. The war was also seen as a way to distract people from industrial strife that was evident at the time such as working conditions. "The intensive industrialisation which occurred in Britain and Germany in the thirty years before 1914 put the tools of war into the hands of men who were prepared to use them" (Europe Since 1870 105). It the days after the Archdukes assassination Austria must take some of the blame for the onset of war. Austria would not act unless she was sure of the support of Germany. The reason for Germanys part in the outbreak of war was due to a telegram sent to Franz Joseph guaranteeing Austria Germany"s support in the event of a war. This has become known as the "Blank Cheque". Austria sent an ultimatum to Serbia, which contained unrealistic terms. However Serbia managed to meet all terms except one which would have allowed Austrian army to occupy Serbian territory. At this stage Austria could have prevented war but she chose not to. July 28th, 1914 Austria declares war on Serbia and as a result of the alliance system Europe goes to war. With Britain being the last to enter on the war on August 5th, 1914.By 1914 the system of diplomacy in Europe had broken down. Statesmen were thinking of war as a preventative measure rather than a last resort. Lloyd George remarked that Europe "stumbled and staggered into war" (Reasons for War 3). World War 1 was a result of aggression and tension in Europe; all of Europe played a part in the outbreak of war not just Germany. World War 1 had many complex causes rather than one main one.
