I will have her words on how to build the essay writing properly with her own essay that she received maximum scores in. I will quote what she wrote and definitely there are some of her wrong grammars (Not mine!) :
First you have to answer the question that the test ask you. Then the techniques that you have to follow is :
The beginning:
Step 1: the Hook: the title or quote that catches the readers’ attention. You can start with anything you like about art, music, etc. This is just a introduction to lead the reader into your idea of the topic:
“Today’s preparation determines tomorrow’s achievement,” declares a poster that hangs in many high school classrooms
Step2: Explanations of or Comment on the Hook:
This is the second sentence that is still in the introduction’s mode, which means we will not talk about our ideas in those two sentences.:
The ideology that effort expelled results in guaranteed result is pervasive among the American populace
This sentence is somewhat a fancy thing to say : the idea that effort helps much is widespread in America. You can see in the sentence King used the high-leveled words like: “ideology”, “pervasive”, and “populace” to improve the sophistication of the sentence to make it more formal.
Step3: Introduction to the Topic:
This sentence is literally the one that helps solidify the topic of the question. For example: the question is asking about the success of effort, and we really want to make sure that you do not talk about the classroom’s slogan about how widespread a slogan was because you mentioned the slogan at the beginning, so that it is crucial to tell the reader at the end that we just use the slogans to lead to the topic:
But sadly, the achievement of success per the American people is not as cut as dry – this sentence literally post the topic of the question about whether the effort determines all the successes in life. In addition, this sentence is similar to the second version of the question about effort without a question mark.
Step4: Introduction to My Answer to the Question:
This sentence serves as a second introduction to your idea. The difference between the first and the second is that the first gives the general understanding of a topic while the second gives a more specific fields and titles that the topic is applied to. Also the sentence will have a little of a definition about the terms in the question:
In the United States today, success is defined by celebrity, wealth, fame, and power
Step5: Old-School Thesis Statement:
This sentence is exactly the one that you show your side of the topic and the examples that you will use in the body paragraphs:
Those who pursue the ultimate in the American dream, although their dreams maybe as disparate as success on Broadway to attaining the most powerful position in the world- the United States presidency, find that success is largely determined by luck.
You can see that King used the rare structure of sentence: the structure use of “although” in the middle of the sentence, the range of different characters from different fields to support the idea that luck has its firm positions in many successes.
We will do the middle body:
The overall point is to follow the structures that help reveal the best changes of the character in discussion:
The overall structures:
Point 1: Intro and Brief Background
Becoming a “star” in modern culture is deemed a valuable vocation to pursue. There is no better example of the iconic rise to the top than current Broadway leading lady Sutton Foster. Ms. Foster, Tony award-winner and nominee, finds herself at the top her profession, but not through hard work
Point 2: Character Stage I: showing the previous state of mind of the character that later changes
Her career started at seventeen when she auditioned for the National Tour of “Les Miserables”. She was offered the job promptly – even as an unknown. So started her road to success
Point 3 : Character Stage II: the problem that the character encounters when keeping doing something that causes failure or indication of changes in actions and situations that will change the character’s previous state:
Not long after, she found herself in the chorus of a Broadway – indicating the next movement or the basic step that brought the character to meet the position in the Broadway
Point 4: Character Stage III: showing the realization of the character after the failure and new experience
There her luck proved significant again: the lead actress was unable to fulfill her commitments, was fired, and Foster found herself cast as the title role
Point 5: Summarizing the story with your own understanding about the problems.
Although Ms. Foster is a highly talented and well-trained individual, no amount of training guarantees the luck – and precipitate success – that she currently experience
You can follow the same steps for the third paragraph for example and set of ideas.
In paragraph 4, we just include one or two sentence binding all the clues together. We should rephrase the argument in our thesis. Then we have to include a sentence referring back to our argument.
It is interesting that modern culture defines success in terms that are circumstantial. Perhaps if success were redefined as personal happiness and peace, the world would be populated by a significantly larger number of “successful” people.
This is my opinion about the whole of her instructions:
I think we should omit the fourth step to introduce the answer the the question and go straight to the thesis statement because the fourth step will confuse you with the third step and take time to think.
In my opinion for the body work, we should additionally include the effects of the changes on characters about what did the characters good and then we move on to the point 5.
About the conclusion I will not do as what she did. Instead, I will write:
The road to presidency and the undeniable luck of famous Sutton Foster indeed emphasize the importance of considering luck in the success. If the successes seemingly result from only what we thought as mere effort and hard-work, the world will certainly be filled with happy “successful” people
SAT Essay Writing 