Undergraduate / Commonapp essay 2 - an experience in tutoring [2]

Option #2: Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?

When my student had to stop his tuition with me because he was underperforming, I felt like I had failed an exam.
I started to teach tuition after 'A' levels because I had free weekends during my two years of national service. I liked tuition and enjoyed tutoring. Because I had good results in school, I was conceited. There were many student tutors who did less well than me, so I thought if they could teach tuition, then I would not be just an average tutor. I wanted my students to have good results.

In March this year I started to tutor James in 'O' level physics. James was bright and easy to teach. He understood what I explain without difficulties and he was very good in Math (he was top in his class for math). I saw that he had a lot of aptitude, so I recommended he go beyond the usual difficulty level and practice on more challenging questions. I believed more challenging questions would benefit him by challenging him to think harder. We had a good chemistry and he told me he liked me more than his physics teacher in school.

When James's preliminary exams came, I gave him past year papers to practice on independently. It was an acid test of how much James had improved since I tutored him. I was astonished when he consistently failed all three papers I gave him. His parents stopped his tuition with me afterwards and I was devastated. I could not understand why I did not succeed with this student. I also became disillusioned about teaching.

I spent a lot of time reflecting on the five months I tutored James. James did poorly because he had a mindset that hindered him. He believed that getting questions correct shows that he is smart while getting them wrong shows that he is stupid. When he practiced, he skipped questions that were too hard. Doing that precluded him from getting questions wrong, but he also sabotaged himself by avoiding genuine practice. It was why although he could understand things quickly, he could not improve his results.

It became clear to me that I did not have as much influence on students as I thought I had. As a tutor I have always given a lot of effort to answer questions, explain concepts and ensure my students practice. I have done everything with the benefit of the student in mind. If the student does not put in effort to learn however, it would be difficult for him or her to make improvement.

In a broader sense, I learnt that failing in tuition is like losing in poker. The best hand in poker, an A-A hand, has an 87% chance of winning the worst hand in poker, a 7-2 hand. But that means A-A also has a 13% chance of losing to 7-2. Normally we would feel bad if we lose with A-A but good poker players would understand that there is nothing to feel stupid about losing with the better odds. This applies to teaching as well. Sometimes despite all of a teacher's efforts a student fails and the teacher might feel defeated. The fact is there are bound to be some students who do badly. For example they are lazy to do their homework. It is important for a vain teacher like me to see tuition success and failure in this way so I can understand my role in tutoring and continue to invest my time and effort in what I love to do.

All in all I learnt to assess failure objectively. Also I hope this experience will make me both a better teacher and a better student.

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This is the commonapp essay I wrote when I applied early to Harvard. I was deferred. When I was writing this essay I was reading some of the sample essays accepted by top schools and they actually confused me as to what would be a good essay. So I didn't have a clear idea of what would cut it as a good and personal essay and I ended up with something like that. I personally feel that this essay is not a good reflection of myself and I have written another essay for commonapps, planning to discard this. However I would like to learn from you guys how this essay feels so I can get a better sense of my writing. Please criticize it for me. Lots of thanks!

Undergraduate / Uchicago supplement essay - Do animals feel pain? [6]

Essay prompt : In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, pose a question of your own. If your prompt is original and thoughtful, then you should have little trouble writing a great essay. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk, and have fun.

Do animals feel pain?

I asked my friend a simple question: "Do animals feel pain?" He thought for a second, making sure it was not a trick question, and answered "Ya obviously they feel pain." So I continued "Then why do people fish?" I asked this because if people knew that animals can get hurt and can feel pain, I could not understand why they would do things that hurt animals in the first place, given that they would not do the same thing to a human being.

The method of fishing I am talking about is angling, where a hook is attached to a line and fishes are baited to bite the hook. The problem with angling is it invariably causes a lot of pain to the fish because when the fish bites the bait, the sharp hook pierces through the roof of the fish's mouth and the struggling fish would be dragged with a huge force towards the angler. For fishermen who fish for recreation or sport, they get their satisfaction or pleasure at the expense of pain and suffering in fishes. Fishing is a relatively common activity despite how I make it out to be. In the UK alone, there are roughly 6 million anglers. Therefore I cannot fathom how such a mindlessly cruel act can have such prevalence in our modern world.

Everyday, unnecessary or replaceable human activities cause a great amount of pain and suffering in animals. Animals suffer when they are hunted for recreation, when they are skinned to make coats or tote bags and when they are used to test superfluous cosmetics and drugs. It is estimated that 25 million animals are used every year for laboratory procedures in the US. I am sure the majority of people would tell me that yes animals can feel pain. Yet I do not understand why in so many ways we act as though we believe that animals do not feel pain, or worse, that it is okay for animals other than human beings to be in pain.

There are many arguments that assert that it is not wrong to use animals for human ends. Some of them economic, some of them environmental and some of them divine but what is common in most of these arguments are they do not even consider the fact that animals suffer. The arguments that do often have shaky grounds. For instance, some anglers argue that fishes do not feel pain. They cite research that shows that fishes have a different neurological anatomy to humans, making them insusceptible to pain. The problem with this argument is the research in this area has been ambiguous and largely inconclusive, and it is hard to imagine that grievous injury caused by angling is really painless. Moreover, if it turns out that we are wrong, I would rather we are wrong about the fact that fishes feel pain than they do not.

On another note, it is relieving to know that our society is progressing forward in using laws and justice to protect animals. In 2008, laws were amended in Switzerland to mandate that fishermen must undergo training on humane treatment of fishes after they are caught. In 2011, SPCA proposed to the Ministry of National Development in Singapore to make failing to take care of the welfare of pets a criminal offence among other amendments to animal protection laws.

The fundamental premise that allows our society to treat animals differently is the belief that animals are different from humans. I never believed that humans are completely and unequivocally different from animals. Had I been born in a society that has neither language nor advanced civilization I would not grow to have the abilities I have now. I was not biologically acquainted with language or the ability to use a computer. When I grew up, I learnt that our societal norm inclines us to help the underprivileged and the handicapped. Hence I naturally felt that we needed to help our less advanced animal counterparts by the same principle.

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I tried to express my belief about the state of animals as fully as possible in this essay. Please comment on whether my essay answers the question, the organisation of the essay, how you feel about it etc. Help me check for any grammar mistakes I might have missed or don't know about. Thanks in advance.