Angel Said:

Can you score this SAT I essay on a scale of 1-6?

We Answered:

4; good ideas and organization, suggest providing examples from history, literature, science, or popular culture rather than having all personal examples (not that your examples are bad, its just that anyone can come up with a personal example whereas an example from something you learned in school or a global topic seems more impressive), a few grammatical errors and redundancy (saying literally twice in the first sentence)

Alexander Said:

Can you score this SAT I essay on a scale of 1-6?

We Answered:

I'd probably give this a 5. You have a complete essay, and you've made a clear thesis statement and supported it with examples. You've also shown a clear comprehension of advanced vocabulary and written an easily understandable essay.

But I think this falls a bit short of a 6 in the two body paragraphs. You use the phrase "fall in with the wrong crowd," presumably trying to say that he chose to associate with people he should have known would only present him with further bad choices, but the phrase "fall in" is so passive that it doesn't make the clear case that his choices brought him to that point. You also don't mention specifically that he chose an action which led to him being arrested. Making clear statements about what choices he made that led him to a criminal's life -- and pointing out that they were his choices and not fate -- would make that a much stronger paragraph.

In the second body paragraph, I think the example is too hypothetical. It would be much stronger if you were to talk about specific choices that you have made, although your discussion of how aware you are of consequences and repercussions is good.

I think you could make these two body paragraphs much, much stronger if you interwove them a bit more. The prompt is not about good choices or bad choices specifically, but rather about whether/how choices affect your life. You start by discussing how close you were. You could also mention how similar your interests were and how you did everything together -- made the same choices and had basically the same life. (And *say* that. The essay is not about making the reader understand; it's about showing the reader that YOU understand.)

Then you could talk about how you and he began to make different choices, using at least one specific example of a time when you chose not to associate with the people he chose to spend time with. Then talk about a choice that you made that led to a good academic result, and contrast that with the choice that he made that got him arrested. You can conclude the interwoven examples with a statement that when your choices were similar, your lives were similar, but over time each of you made very different choices which led you down very different paths. And you can mention that some choices have very long-lasting repercussions, such as his arrest, which will be with him forever and may significantly impact his future even decades from now.

I get the feeling from this that you feel like you need to have two body paragraphs with two examples in order to write a complete SAT essay. And it's true that two body paragraphs are good (one long paragraph is hard to read, and the essay readers have to read hundreds of these, so breaking things up a bit makes it easier on them). But that doesn't mean they need to talk about two different things. In fact, a lot of the strongest examples of essays in the official SAT study guide are those where a person took one example and developed it further in a second paragraph, or used two slightly different examples, one of which is an extension or refinement of the other. Part of getting a 6 is showing a clear and consistent mastery of the complex ideas put forth in a given prompt. And I think you're very close to that.

Best of luck!

Timothy Said:

Can you score this SAT I essay on a scale of 1-6?

We Answered:

i would give it a 4 on the SAT grading scale. the best advice i can give you is to vary your sentence structure a little more; in the second paragraph you had several simple sentences in a row, and although your thoughts might be complex, an SAT grader will take a simple sentence for a simple thought, unless you use one in the midst of several compound sentences for emphasis.
on any timed essay, you should try to keep away from using personal pronouns such as I, me, or my.
in the third paragraph; do not start a sentence with 'but' and work on the wording in the phrase 'when i might have no job or money' try re-wording to 'when jobless, and short on money' or something along those lines; 'have no job or money' sounds uneducated.
the use of a quote is great! and it will score you kudos with the graders, but don't say its your favorite movie, just cite your source.
you have lots of good ideas, and it is very hard to spit out an essay on a random topic when you only have twenty-five mintes (this is how long you have on the SAT), but keep writing and you can only get better. i took the SAT three times and finaly acheived a 6 on the essay after only getting a 4 my first two times. Good luck!