Can someone help grade my GRE Analytical Writing

[brcewolff]

I want to do well on the Analytical writing but, I don't have anyway of knowing what my grade would be. Could someone grade or give feedback on my practice attempt???

[brcewolff]

[Erin]

This is the essay that was posted:

1 hour ago, brcewolff said:

I OCR'd the essay to make it easier to read and give feedback on:

Quote

A nation should require all of its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position.

I am a student who has gone through the united states public school system. This system is relatively competent and prepared me well for standardized tests and college. private school systems however boast an even greater competence and, prepare students for standard testing to a far greater degree. I think that having an unfair advantage solely based on financial standing is wrong and should be done away with.

The USA is a great example of a country with disproportionate schools. In the USA there are public and private schools, both offering educations but, both not equal. Public schools are institutions that are in the hands of the state for the most part. The area's taxes determine whether or not the school has sufficient funding, areas with sufficient funding do fine but, those without proper funds do well below average. Schools that are private, do not need to rely on the money of taxpayers. They are privately funded by fees, fees paid to enroll students. This fee is often quite steep and is only afforded by those well off, those with generational wealth; those whose parents help them through life generously. funding is not all that private schools boast, they have better on average standardized scores, better on average grades, and better on average college admittance. One can see that having disproportionate school systems is unfair to the lower income population, and countries that want to facilitate a healthy middle class should move towards an even playing field.

The USA has an unbalanced school system, but not every country does it like the united states. In fact, the countries with the best test scores in the world have anti private school laws. The swiss, the Netherlands, Japan, and China all have very standard public schools that try to offer even shot for all economic backgrounds. This helps to truly let the best and brightest shine but it helps all schools to get funding. making wealthy parents pay money towards public schools to improve their kids and all attending kids' education.

The school which I attended before college was well funded and prepared me well, but this could have easily not been the case. systems in which private schools are allowed to exist is one where the rich get richer. In order for those who posses less financial backing to compete with those who have it all, schools must enact a national curriculum.

@brcewolffFirst, the good news: You show a pretty high level of ability in writing in most parts of your essay! You have a lot of complex sentences and strong reasoning.

To improve: The #1 thing is that this essay is a bit off-topic. You're basically writing about the quality/rigor of education available to students in the US, not the actual curriculum. This essay prompt asks you whether every student in the US should study exactly the same material for their entire education. For example, every ninth grader would start English class by reading, say Huckleberry Finn, not a novel of the teacher's choosing or some other topic. And every high school graduate will have taken the same mixture of math, history, science, PE, etc. throughout their school years.

Second, please try to pay attention to common English punctuation conventions. Your readability isn't really affected, but not capitalizing proper nouns (eg, united states) isn't a good look for an important essay. Another related example--you wrote The swiss, the Netherlands, Japan, and China. First of course, you need to uppercase Swiss. Second, you should list these nationalities using the same part of speech (ie, make them parallel), so you could either say The Swiss, Dutch, Japanese, and Chinese or Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan, and China.

A couple more grammar/punctuation areas to focus on:

• college. private => college. Private. Be sure to uppercase the first letter of a sentence.
• Schools that are private, do not need to rely on the money of taxpayers. => Change Schools that are private to Private schools. Get rid of the comma after private (no comma between the subject and verb for this construction). Consider shortening money of taxpayers to taxpayers' money or even just taxes.

There are a few more errors as well, but hopefully you get the idea. Not sure whether Grammarly would pick up all the errors; I plugged the writing into a couple of online grammar checkers (Grammarly and Prowritingaid), and they didn't get even some of the most obvious ones.

Also, you should write this essay without your personal experience; cite instead common information (even though you won't have access to research tools while writing for the GRE).

Final observation: You've basically written a persuasive essay here, not an expository one. Be sure to know the differences! You need to write in a more neutral, analytical way, as if you were analyzing all the evidence and presenting a conclusion or recommendation.

[brcewolff]

Thanks!! I'll make sure to reflect on these notes. I will be continually posting more of these attempts as I practice more. If you see them Erin, please crit them. This was stellar advice.