12.Practice.Tests.for.the.SAT_2015-2016_1128p

12 Practice Tests for the SAT
Practice Test Two Answers an d Exp l anations
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Answers and
Explanations
SECTION 1
6 Score Essay
To me, being an expert means being successful, and
achieving success requires lots of hard work, time, and
practice. This is true regardless of what you pursue, from
running to drawing, acting to skating, teaching to dancing.
Yet expertise and success don't come from skill alone. To
truly succeed, you need to have at least as much motivation
as talent, because if you don't possess the desire to do
something, your talent may simply wither from neglect, and
people who prove this to be the case include Jewel and my
sister.
Pop singer Jewel has a critically acclaimed voice and
songwriting skills. She's won awards for her songs and
succeeded in the music business. Yet she didn't achieve
fame and fortune simply with her talent. Instead, she
struggled and worked incredibly hard for many years before
she ever found success. In fact, at one point she was
living in her car because she didn't have enough money
to support herself, but she never gave up or stopped
believing in her dream to play guitar and sing. Jewel's
strong motivation and drive finally paid off when she was
"discovered" by a music producer and recorded albums that
showed off her talent and sold well to the general public,
making her a successful expert in her field.
My sister is a contrast to Jewel's effective combination
of talent and motivation. When she was little, my sister
showed natural talent as a dancer, and my parents enrolled
her in classes to develop her talent. My sister, however,
didn't care about dancing, so she never practiced or put
any effort into her classes. Eventually, my parents realized
that they were wasting their money to pay for her training
because even though she had talent, she didn't possess
the motivation to support her talent. My sister's lack of will
meant that her talent became useless, because she needed
to work to transform her talent into true skill and expertise in
order to achieve success, but she didn't have the motivation
to follow through with this.
By looking at the contrasting examples of Jewel and
my sister, both with natural talent but only one with the
matching will to succeed, you can see that motivation is
the critical factor for success or expertise in a field. You can
only really make full use of your talent if you have the will to
succeed.
6 Score Critique
All essays are evaluated on four basic criteria: Topic,
Support, Organization, and Language. The writer begins this
essay by providing her definition of the word expert in the
assignment. By equating expertise with success, the writer
clearly indicates her own interpretation of the prompt and
then develops her thesis to show how talent and motivation
are relevant to this interpretation.
The two contrasting examples in the body paragraphs
are both well developed with sufficient details and direct
integration into the author's thesis. By citing opposing
examples, both of which support her thesis, the author
demonstrates a high level of understanding and critical
thinking about the prompt. Each paragraph flows smoothly
into the next, thanks to the use of clear transitional words
and phrases such as yet, instead, in fad, but, in contrast,
and however. The strong organization of this essay helps
to reinforce the author's thesis by creating a clear and
consistent argument for the reader to follow.
Finally, the writer's language and sentence structure are
both sophisticated and varied, with no grammatical errors
to detract from the overall strength of the essay. This is an
excellent SAT essay.
4 Score Essay
Not many people can be called "experts" at anything. We all
have certain skills and talents but that doesn't mean we're
able to rise to the very top of our field because other people
may be more talented or have better skills. So the real
difference between the "experts" and the rest of us is that
they have something extra that allows them to be just a little
more or just a little better, and that's motivation or drive.
A good example of an expert is figure skater Michelle Kwan.
She's won Olympic medals and other world championships
in her chosen field. She's got lots of talent as a skater but
to become an expert athlete she also had to really want to
improve her skills to reach the championship level. Without