SAT Practice Essay (25 minutes given)

UPDATE: Received a score of 5 out of 6.

Question: "Nowadays nothing is private: our culture has become too confessional and self-expressive. People think that to hide one’s thoughts or feelings is to pretend not to have those thoughts or feelings. They assume that honesty requires one to express every inclination and impulse."
Adapted from J. David Velleman, "The Genesis of Shame"

Should people make more of an effort to keep some things private? 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.


Essay Response:The amount of transparency a person chooses to allow themselves varies from person to person, but in recent times this amount has increased on average. The internet has become the most convenient, accessible and permissive medium available to us, and the result of this is that it has spawned a generation of people who feel the need to express every minute detail of their being and share it with the rest of the world. In my own experience, people tend to retain a respectable level of privacy when interacting with others face to face. However, the metaphorical wall between individuals tends to crumble in the false sense of anonymity on the internet.

Nowadays people live in the fear of being inaccurately judged; hence the need to update even the minutest of details about their lives, in the hopes that the rest of the world will have a clear idea of 'who they really are'. This, in my opinion, fosters self-indulgent and narcissistic mindsets. Online experience is easily tailored to individuals, making the internet essentially 'all about you'. The ease at which we share our lives with others, and view the lives of others', builds a sense of self-importance and the illusion that the rest of the world actually wants to know what you had for breakfast. The repercussions of such effects means a world run by self-centered individuals who would shamelessly expose the most intimate parts of their lives to the rest of the world, yet cower in the face of revealing such things to anyone in face to face.

Also at stake in the lack of self-imposed privacy and prudence is security. To plaster your life story on public space is to compromise your safety. Given that it is possible for any potential criminal to deduce much of a person's life from a stack of their grocery receipts, the job would be immensely simplified if all this information (and more) were handed over on a silver platter. A silver platter with Facebook and Twitter logos on it.

To conclude, it is generally unwise to expose your entire life and every thought to billions of people you don't know. To do so is to strut around the world stark naked - most people don't want to see it, and the ones that do are sharpening their throwing knives and celebrating your vulnerability.

Bad Timing

A burst of something
A momentous occasion
When understanding comes
That no amount of persuasion
Could get me to believe

Thought punches through
As the very world shatters
And I see
Something through the tatters
That remain floating, purposeless

I'm not quite sure what,
But it's something
Astoundingly bright
The essence of that one thing
That eluded understanding

The world's shards remain
Like dewdrops in the air
Catching the light perfectly
Seemingly crafted with care
Each and every one of them

Sucked backed together
Reality regenerating
My view is blocked
The host darkness dissipating
It's time for breakfast

Nothing Nonsense.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.



THEN THERE IS SOMETHING

FOR A BRIEF MOMENT.


And then there is nothing again;


Less than nothing, now that
There had once been un-nothing
Instead of the usual nothing.

But if there was
More-than-nothing,
Then re-nothing is
Less-than.


Now I wish there was nothing.

It would at least be something.
Or non-nothing.

If not un-nothing,
Then at least re-nothing.

But there will never be re-nothing again.
Nothing will always be sub-nothing.

Unless there is something.
But if there is too much something, then
Something will become nothing.

And previous-nothing will be
Less than less-than.
It will be sub-nothing.

But new-nothing.
Nothing will be restored.
And then there will always be nothing
Unless more-than-something
Becomes the new something.

And maybe one day you find everything.
Everything.
More-than... un-nothing.

But then all else would be sub-nothing.
And when everything is gone,

You sit and stare into empty blank spaces of nothing
And drink too much and develop bad habits and problems
And feel lifeless and lack energy and hate everything you love
And try to kill yourself and weep in fetal position
And think about everything
And miss the times when there was something
And you'd be grateful for even nothing, because

Nothing will never be NOTHING
Ever again.



There was nothing.

There was nothing.

There was nothing.

There was nothing.

There was nothing.

Everything.

Walking With Myself

The self is a companion

In the most senses of the word.

It ambles by your side

Ever quiet

And knows exactly where

You want to go;

Where you do not.

It never drags you unwillingly

Into tenacious messes and tangles

For companionship’s sake,

Instead leading you gently

Like a leaf through the air

Following its shadow;

A trajectory into a muffled nothingness

And quiet melancholy

You learn to embrace for its peacefulness.

It shares things with you

Sometimes it can be quarrelsome

But will never desert you

In anger or frustration

Except in those times

When it becomes sullen and difficult

Mulling over discrepancies

Between you and itself,

Things you had neglected

Or failed to notice;

Things you tried to force upon it

Forgetting the fight in its spirit

Always equal to yours

Except surpassing in patience, tolerance

Until it can bear no more.

It tells you things

If you listen.

You never walk by yourself.