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

1 2 Practice Tests for the SAT
282 Practice Test Three Answers and Explanations
4 Score Essay
What contributes the most to personal happiness is
definitely how you respond to things that happen to you.
I've seen this in my own life because of many difficult
events that have happened to some close friends. What
they people experienced would have been enough to make
most people just give up on life, but my friends somehow
managed to continue to live and even find some personal
happiness of their own.
The first thing that happened was that the older brother
had bad intestinal problems for several years and no doctor
could figure out why he was in so much pain. He had to be
in the hospital alot, take lots of medication, and even tried
alternative therapies like visualization and bio-feedback. He
never gave up, though, and always managed to keep his
sense of humor throughout the entire thing and eventually
he got better. The whole family was affected by this
lingering illness but they were able to somehow keep up
their spirits and maintain some happiness and hope.
The next thing that happened was that the father, a longtime
smoker, got emphysema and was hospitalized. He
died on Christmas Day that year which was devestating
to his wife and sons. But the next year, the three of them
took a trip together to celebrate the anniversary of his life
by swimming with dolphins in the Caribbean Sea. Again,
they managed to look at things in a positive way and find
happiness even though they were sad.
Another thing that happened was that the younger brother
got in a car wreck and flipped his Jeep. Then the older
brother got stabbed randomly in a fast-food restaurant.
It's a pretty amazing thing that they both survived these
traumas and didn't get totally depressed. Instead, each
time they confronted a difficult thing, they learned from the
experience, grew stronger, and moved on with their lives.
My grandmother used to say, "If life gives you lemons,
make lemonade." To me, this means that you have to make
the best out of whatever happens to you in life and not let
yourself be controlled by events. Having personal happiness
means choosing to react in ways that keep you positive,
despite how negative things might be. And my close family
friends are an example of how you can achieve happiness
in the face of tragedy and pain.
4 Score Critique
All essays are evaluated on four basic criteria: Topic,
Support, Organization, and Language. The writer begins
his essay with a strong statement of his thesis, showing
immediately that he has understood the prompt and has
a clear response to the assignment. The body paragraphs
gradually develop the single example by describing a series
of events and reactions to adequately support the author's
main point. With several transitions to link ideas and
paragraphs (The first thing, The next thing, Another thing),
the organization of this essay is consistent and indicates
that the author took time to plan his essay before writing.
The conclusion uses a common generalization to reinforce
the author's idea and neatly summarizes his main points to
provide a strong ending to the essay.
Overall, the author's language is adequate, although some
simplistic vocabulary, especially repetition of the vague
terms thing and things throughout the essay, detracts
from the strength of the author's writing. A few spelling
errors (alot instead of a lot in the second paragraph;
they instead of the or these in paragraph 1; devestating
instead of devastating in the third paragraph), some
sentence fragments (phrases beginning with But or And),
and inconsistent verb tenses also weaken the essay. This
writer should leave enough time to proofread to catch any
careless mistakes.
2 Score Essay
Each person experiences alot of different things in their
life. Some good some bad. But we can't really control
what happens to us all we can control is how we react to
what happens to us. So we're really in control of our own
happiness since we can decide how we react to different
experiences.
The best example to prove this is divorce, like what
happened to both me and my best friend. My parents got
divorced when I was in fourth grade so I was old enough
to understand what was happening and to be really upset
about it at first. But then my mother and father each talked
to me about why they were splitting up and I started to
understand that it was better for both of them not to
be together. But my best friend had a totally different
situation when his parents divorced because he was totally
depressed by the entire situation and couldn't really get
over it for a long time. With me, I could understand why