“Tell them what you’re going to say, tell them what you have to say, and then tell them what you just said.”
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“Tell them what you’re going to say, tell them what you have to say, and then tell them what you just said.” |
The last task of your Accuplacer experience will be to write an essay on a topic that will be provided for you. Of all five parts of the Accuplacer, the essay has the most fluid guidelines. You might have to take it, or you might not. You might have to type it, or you’ll have to submit it on paper. It might be timed, or it might be open-ended. All of these decisions will be made by the individual school that administers the test.
For the purposes of this chapter, then, we’re going assume the strictest parameters possible and treat the essay as if (1) you have to take it, and (2) you have a time limit. Whether you have to type or write it isn’t that big a deal, unless you have terrible typing skills or undecipherable handwriting. There are things to keep in mind for each format, however, and we’ll address those as well.
The How, Not the What
A college or university might want to test your essay-writing skills because so much of your college experience will involve expressing your ideas in print as eloquently as possible. It’s important to note that the essay readers will not judge you by what you say—i.e., what your thesis statement is. They will be much more interested in how you say it. So if you take the controversial position that the minimum age of a member of Congress should be lowered from 25 to 13, for example, you can get a good score if you write well and defend your assertion shrewdly, whether or not the reader agrees with you.
The most concrete advice that the Accuplacer has to offer in terms of how to write its essay is a checklist of the five elements that the Accuplacer’s essay readers will look for in your writing. These are the core ideas that every essay writer should learn and, for the purposes of this test, practice over and over. After you gain some more experience with these essays, you might be surprised to find that the skills will come more naturally to you, without your having to think about them.
Element 1: Mechanics
The first thing essay readers will notice about your essay is whether your sentences are grammatically sound. These readers have been around the block a few thousand times when it comes to reading essays, so errors in grammar, spelling, or syntax will tend to really stand out. And in most readers’ minds, nothing compromises the value of an essay more than a poor understanding of the basic rules of written English.
Luckily, if you’ve had the chance to study grammar rather intensely for the first two sections of the Accuplacer, you may have already noticed that your grammar skills have improved. When you finish any essay, you should always re-read it to look for mistakes you may have made in your first draft. Even if your essay is timed, you should always leave a little time at the end to refine and polish your work.
Element 2: Structure
The structure of an essay involves the variety of sentences that you use. There are many ways to construct a sentence, and each has its own rhythm. If you repeat the same sentence structure throughout a paragraph, the reader will get really bored really fast. Consider this:
France is a big country. It is in the middle of Europe. Its capital is Paris. Paris has a population of 2.2 million people. The city is known for its beautiful buildings.
One of these buildings is the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
Are you asleep yet? The rhythm of the sentences is so repetitive that it lulls you into expecting what’s next, and it makes the reader feel he just drank a bottle of cough syrup. Now, consider the same information expressed in this way:
Located at the center of Europe, France has the second-largest land mass on the continent. Paris, its capital city, has a population of 2.2 million people, and its architecture—including the world-famous Cathedral of Notre Dame—stands out for its beauty and historical significance.
See the difference? After a little more added information, the sentences are varied, they contain a wider array of vocabulary, and they flow into each other better. The result: A much higher score.
Element 3: Organization
When you were younger, you may have learned the most basic way to organize an essay: An introductory paragraph that contains a thesis statement, two or three paragraphs that support the statement made in the introduction, and a strong concluding paragraph. One way to look at this three-part scheme is with these three statements:
• Tell them what you’re going to say;
• Say what you have to say; and
• Tell them what you just said.
It might seem over-simple, but simplicity is the name of the game when you’re writing an essay on a standardized test. The readers have a lot of essays to read, and they don’t have a lot of time to linger on your magnum opus.
Element 4: Development
Readers like organization, and they like when your ideas are developed well in the body of your essay. Are your examples interesting? Are they relevant to your thesis? Are they linked together well?
This speaks to the overall feel of your essay, which your reader will appreciate once he or she has read the entire thing. Is your message clear, or did you derail your train of thought? Do your paragraphs progress logically? Essentially, the reader wants to assess how well you understood the topic and how well your body paragraphs supported your thesis statement. Again, it’s important to remember that the reader doesn’t care as much about the thesis statement itself as about how well that statement is supported, and that the overall message is compelling.
The (Unofficial) Sixth Point
When you write your essay, try to put yourself in your reader’s position. Your reader will be reading a lot of these essays at once, and some of them will be … not as good at the others. A number will have bad handwriting, bad spelling, no paragraphs, no clear focus, muddled or nonexistent reasoning, etc. Reading so many essays is already a difficult task, and essays with problems like these make the reader’s work all the more arduous. Making a reader work hard is always a bad thing.
Conversely, if your reader surfaces from several challenging essays in a row to find your well-organized work, containing relevant examples to support a clear thesis statement, he or she will be overjoyed.
When faced with an essay question, your first instinct might be to get right to it and start writing (or typing). But remember: You’re being assessed on how focused and organized you are, so it’s never a good idea to start rambling and hope that whatever you end up with makes any sense. Instead, use the following four steps to create an essay that best measures up to the criteria we’ve outlined above. If you take the time to structure and think before you write, you may find that the writing flows a lot more easily.
After you read the essay prompt, take a few moments to think about how you might answer it. Do you have an opinion? If so, write it down. If not, start thinking about examples that would be relevant to the topic. Anything is possible: personal anecdotes, books you’ve read, movies you’ve seen, current events, etc. Write all of these down, too, and whatever you do, don’t censor yourself. Free-think with as few restrictions as possible; you’ll have plenty of time to sift through all the ideas as you prepare for step 2.
Notice that we haven’t said anything about forming an opinion (or a thesis statement) yet, since at this point you don’t really need to have one. In some cases, you might not formulate your thesis until after you’ve had a look at some of the ideas you’ve written down. As in many elements of this or any standardized test, don’t discount the possibility of a mid-problem epiphany. They’re much more common than you might think.
Step 2: Make An Outline
This is where your essay finds its structure and sounds less like your free-associative ramblings. Look among all the ideas you jotted down. Which ones seem the most relevant? Which seem to fit together to form the most effective thesis? Keep the ones you like, skip the ones you don’t, and get ready to build the skeleton of your essay.
Step 3: Start Writing Informally
Most of us think in conversational English, rather than formal, written English. So as you’re forming your essay, indulge your instincts and start writing as if you’re explaining your ideas to a friend. Expressing your thoughts informally can actually speed the creative process, because you won’t feel compelled to express them in the most formal way possible. This also makes your ideas come across as more genuine.
Once you feel your essay’s content is strong, and your ideas are fully formed and supported well, it’s time to formalize your writing into something that might appear in published form. Use this time to:
• read the essay start to finish to see if your paragraphs flow well together (“connecting” words like Furthermore can be useful);
• make sure your paragraphs are reasonably short (4-8 sentences) and strongly delineated;
• rewrite sentences to make sure they don’t all have the same rhythm;
• insert synonyms to vary your word choice;
• check for spelling, syntax, and punctuation.
As you finish up your work, it’s important to note here that even though your ability to write a thoughtful, concise essay is being tested, your readers also know this is an impromptu exercise with, in many cases, a deadline. They are looking for an essay of high quality, but they also know they cannot expect perfection on such an off-the-cuff assignment. This realization may take a little pressure off you as you endeavor to create your best work under pressure. All you can do is the best you can do, and practice will help you improve.
Let’s put the steps we just discussed into practice and write an essay. Here’s a sample prompt:
“Courtesy is disappearing from everyday interactions, and as a result, we are all the poorer for it.”
To what extent do you agree with this statement? Explain your position by writing a unified essay using relevant reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
OK. We have our topic, and it’s a great one. As you contemplate an answer, you can go in any of several directions. Try a little brainstorming for ideas relevant to this topic. How many overlap with these?
• people text and e-mail instead of talk
• people don’t even phone anymore (article I read in the paper)
• Internet makes for lots of superficial friendships instead of a few meaningful ones
• TV show I saw about faces and how they can help disputes
• cars—road rage because can’t see faces
• too much pressure to work and achieve; not enough time to sit back and be pleasant with people
• people in every generation think the next one thinks less about manners than their own
• positives of social media and networking: Texting to help Red Cross in Haiti and Japan. Spreads information more quickly and can mobilize more people to help in various ways.
Now, formulate your thesis and make an outline:
Paragraph 1: People think courtesy is disappearing, but I don’t think it’s true. Three reasons why.
Paragraph 2: Acknowledge why people feel this way. Studies: people interact better when they can see people’s faces. Road rage is prevalent, mostly because you can’t see faces. Social media and the Internet change the way we relate. Not as much face time.
Paragraph 3: Our corporate culture is pressuring people to achieve, at all costs. People often list common courtesy as one of the most common casualties.
Paragraph 4: Common refrain, however. As people age, they focus more on quality of life, less so with younger people. Makes sense that older people would take younger people to task.
Paragraph 5: Good things the Internet has done. Kiva.org. Texting $$ to Red Cross. Facebook. Easier to keep current.
Paragraph 6: Conclusion. People commonly assume that common courtesy is dying out. Society changes, new challenges arise. But people are still ultimately out to help each other out in times of crisis.
First Draft
Now that you have an outline, you can start writing your essay with a firm idea of what topic(s) each paragraph will cover. You might be surprised how quickly the words come when you put together your first draft:
People think courtesy is disappearing, because social networking is taking the place of face-to-face networking. E-mail is replacing the handshake. While that may be true in a small sense, I believe that man’s desire to help out his fellow man remains strong, and that social networking is actually helping to facilitate that goodwill.
It’s true that “everyday interactions” are changing. As evidenced by the popularity of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking platforms, more people are interacting artificially, without face-to-face contact. The advancement of smart phones makes it easier for people to text rather than talk to each other. And studies about road rage, for example, show that people interact better when they can see each other’s faces.
Despite these concerns, however, I believe that complaining about common courtesy is a common refrain from one generation to the next. Younger people tend to be more ambitious and driven toward more discovering themselves. As people age, however, they can focus less on their financial station and more on the quality of the society they live in. If they perceive that society has changed since “their day” it is common for older people to take younger people to task.
In addition, I believe not enough attention is paid to all the benefits that social networking has brought us. Facebook has helped reformers bring about regime change in several Middle Eastern countries, such as Egypt and Yemen. Kiva.org helps people loan small amounts of money to others for whom a small donation can make a world of difference. Texting has made it easy to donate money to the Red Cross as it comes to the aid of earthquake victims in Haiti and Japan.
People commonly assume that common courtesy is dying out, and social media is the common culprit. The truth, however, is that societies change, and the ever-changing technological landscape is always posing new challenges to what some perceive as common courtesy.
But even if that were true, the level of grass-roots philanthropy that has helped hundreds of thousands in crisis makes a nice trade-off.
Once your first draft is complete, take a look at it. Does it flow well? Do all the elements fit?
You may have noticed that Paragraph 3 in the outline was omitted from the first draft. It might have looked good in the outline stage, but the author’s thesis is to disagree with the given statement. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to include another paragraph that acknowledged the opposite viewpoint. And secondly, as the essay took shape, it adhered more to the theme of social networking. So whatever you thought in terms of the assertion made in the Old Paragraph 3, it was ultimately deemed off-topic.
Don’t discount the potential for a mid-essay epiphany when you write your response. As you write, you will be sifting ideas in your mind all the time. Changes in your way of thinking are quite likely, and it’s easy to accommodate them.
Now let’s take a look at where we can refine the language a bit and add a little polish. The changes we’ve made are in bold:
Some people believe that courtesy is disappearing, because social networking is taking the place of face-to-face networking. The antiseptic e-mail is replacing the warm handshake. While that may be true in a small sense, I believe that man’s desire to help out his fellow man remains strong, and that social networking is actually helping to facilitate that goodwill.
It is easy to make the case that “everyday interactions” are changing. As evidenced by the popularity of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking platforms, more people are interacting artificially, without personal contact. The advancement of smart phones makes it easier for people to text rather than talk to each other. And as studies about road rage have shown, for example, people are more aggressive toward each other when they interact without the cordiality of face-to-face exchange.
Despite these concerns, however, I believe that bemoaning the demise of courtesy is a common refrain from one generation to the next. Younger people tend to be more ambitious and driven toward more discovering who they are and what they want. As people age, however, they can focus less on their financial station and more on the quality of the society they live in. If they perceive that society has changed since “their day,” it is common for older people to take younger people to task.
In addition, I believe not enough attention is paid to all the benefits that social networking has brought us. Facebook has helped reformers bring about regime change in several Middle Eastern countries, such as Egypt and Yemen. Kiva.org helps people loan small amounts of money to others for whom a small donation can make a world of difference. Texting has made it easy to donate money to the Red Cross as it comes to earthquake victims in Haiti and Japan.
People commonly assume that common courtesy is dying out, and social media is often demonized as the culprit. The truth, however, is that societies change, and the ever-changing technological landscape is always posing new challenges to what some perceive as common courtesy. But even if that were true, the level of grass-roots philanthropy that has helped hundreds of thousands in crisis more than makes up for it.
And now you have your final product, ready for review. It’s only 369 words, but it’s concise, structured well, and discusses the issue using relevant information. It also features varied sentence structure and word choice.
When you’re working through your final read-through, keep these other ideas in mind:
• Acknowledge the other side: Your stance on a particular subject becomes much more compelling if you can display an understanding of why those who disagree with you feel the way they do. This shows that you’ve considered both sides of the debate and cultivated an informed opinion.
• Make sure it’s long enough: Readers can’t help it. If an essay looks short, it will look incomplete, regardless of how well you turn a phrase within. (Would you have bought this book if it were only 50 pages long?) Take the time to brainstorm as thoroughly as you can about the essay prompt and bring as much detail into your discussion as possible.
• Don’t repeat yourself: If you come up with what you think is a really trenchant idea, your instinct might be to repeat that idea more than once in order to make sure the reader saw your fantastic insight. When you repeat thoughts, it shows that you’re basing your thesis on fewer ideas than it might look like, and essay readers can see through that ploy from several miles away.
• Be resolute: Your job as a writer is to compel your reader to share your thoughts. If you’re wishy-washy about what you’re trying to say, how can you expect your reader to be persuaded? Instead of saying this may be a problem, say it is a problem. The more convinced you are, the more convinced they will be.
• If you’re writing your essay, try to write as legibly as possible. Deciphering sloppy work is about as hard a job as a reader has.
• If you’re typing your essay, brush up on your typing skills. If you spend all your time hunting and pecking, you’ll take time away from your planning and composition, and your essay will suffer.
As always, better writing comes from practice. Try writing an essay using each of these essay prompts. Once you’re done, compare your work with the sample answers we’ve included at the end of this chapter.
For each of the following essay prompts, write a unified essay indicating the extent to which you agree with the statement. Use relevant reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
1. “Schools should be as responsible for teaching ethical and social values as they are for academic skills.”
2. “The study of history runs counter to our best interests, because it prevents us from focusing on the challenges of the present.”
3. “Self-interest and fear are the two most common forces that motivate people.”
“Schools should be as responsible for teaching ethical and social values as they are for academic skills.”
The premise of this statement is fundamentally flawed. First, ethical values and academics skills are not worthy of comparison because the two are so very different. Academic skills can be debated, but ethics are often debated far more passionately—especially when it comes to religion. And lastly, I believe that any parent who lets his or her child learn about ethics from a teacher is abdicating his responsibility.
First of all, social values cannot be treated or discussed in the same way as academic skills. Since most educators and parents have a good idea about the skills each student should have upon leaving high school, academic skills are easier to standardize. Ethical values, however, are far more subjective and vary more widely from home to home.
Secondly, ethical and social values are often tied to a person’s religious beliefs, which are famously varied among people in the United States. Teaching a homogenized sense of good and evil could be perceived as siding with one religion over another. People are also much more passionate about core beliefs, religious or otherwise, than they are about academics. For example, a parent is unlikely to dispute whether his daughter should know what the Pythagorean Theorem is. However, he might react much more strongly about a religious rite, such as covering your body in public, and resent if a teacher told his daughter it was okay not to wear a burka.
Apart from the various religious customs that sometimes separate us, it is comforting to believe that all people share a common perception of what is right and wrong. I think that is true, but I also think that the job of imparting values to children lies with the parents, not with teachers. Teachers should be entrusted with helping a student learn what to know, but ultimately it is the parents who should help a child learn what to think.
“The study of history runs counter to our best interests, because it prevents us from focusing on the challenges of the present.”
The author of this statement has presented an argument that is remarkably short-sighted. From the way he has phrased it, he appears to believe that the past and present are unrelated. This could not be further from the truth, as so much of what we decide in the present is informed by what we have already learned. Conversely, some of the hugest mistakes in American history have been made by those who, for whatever reason, ignored the lessons of the past.
The study of any science is a perfect example of how the past informs the present, as scientists are constantly using experimentation to build on what we already know. Seismologists, for example, studied the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco to see why some structural designs suffered terrible damage, while others escaped mostly unscathed. Architectural codes were revised to reflect this information, and the hope is that all new buildings, erected with state-of-the-art, earthquake-resistant foundations, will survive the subsequent seismic events that are guaranteed to come from the San Andreas Fault.
Our current economic climate serves as an excellent example of how important it is not to forget the past. After the Great Depression, Congress and President Franklin Roosevelt enacted several regulatory laws to protect against another steep drop in the stock market. One of these was the Glass-Steagall Act, which was designed to control speculation by separating investment banks from commercial banks. In the late 1990s, however, several powerful investment bankers successfully lobbied to have this Act repealed. With this regulation no longer in place, bankers saw fewer restrictions on their desire for greater profits. Among the results was the climate of predatory lending that bankrupted thousands of subprime mortgage holders, as well as the financial institutions that made these loans.
Most students of history will tell you that their studies have shown our existence to be cyclical. The best we can do when we experience disasters and other cataclysmic events is to learn from them and do our best to safeguard them from happening again. As George Santayana famously said, “Those who are unable to remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
“Self-interest and fear are the two most common forces that motivate people.”
As jaded as this statement sounds, I believe there is more than a grain of truth to it.
First of all, I do not want to say that people are unwilling to help each other out. Most people I know are genuinely good people who are quick to lend a hand to a friend who needs it. And I’ve seen plenty of examples of pure altruism, where someone helps someone else without any expectations beyond a simple “Thank you.” It is not uncommon, however, for a philanthropist to make a donation with a specific agenda. The billionaire who funds a new library might want his name across the top in order to create a certain image as a benefactor that could give him an advantage in business negotiations.
As a high school student, I know that a lot of the work I do stems from a desire to learn. But I also admit that I meet deadlines and take on unsavory tasks because I don’t want to get in trouble with my parents or teachers. Without the threat of punishment, it would be easy for me to lapse into complacency and spend my time purely on things I wanted to do.
If you talked to my father about this topic, he would definitely steer the conversation to the stock market. After many years as a broker, he believes that the primary reasons why a market’s level rises or falls are greed (the desire to buy into a stock that appears on the rise) and fear (the desire to sell out of a market that appears in free-fall). The ironic thing about stock volatility is that everyone is looking at what everyone else is doing, and this crowd mentality tends to make everyone feel the same thing at once, causing violent lurches in stock prices.
In conclusion, I do believe that most people are, at heart, mostly concerned with going after what they want. And in my experience, nothing gets me or my friends to do something more than the fear of what will happen if I don’t do it. Without either of those pressures in my life, it’s hard to imagine what I would accomplish, if anything.
Now that you’ve finished the subject review, it’s time to jump into the practice tests. However, if you need some further brush-up on grammar and usage, along with a convenient glossary of frequently used terms, spend some time with our appendix materials, starting on page 189. We believe you’ll find this to be a handy reference well beyond the Accuplacer test itself.