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"Golden Spiral" - challenge a belief or idea


roysar 1 / -  
Aug 10, 2014   #1
Hi guys this is my tentative commonapp essay that still needs a lot of work, would you mind please reviewing over it and making some corrections? I would be ever so grateful :) Thanks!

Question: Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?

Our planet, which may be like no other, harbors billions, if not trillions of species of flora and fauna. And beneath the surface, something even more fascinating, known as the Golden Spiral emerges. It is a mathematical curve that appears countless times in nature, such as in shells, flowers, human faces, and even in the shape of the Milky Way galaxy. It is simply one of the many instances in which math underlies reality, and it is genuinely marvelous.

Until the ninth grade, I was just another student: normal, without any particular passion. The only thing that kept me kicking was my competitiveness. It kept me at the top of my grade, taking the toughest classes and getting the best grades. In ninth grade, I joined the high school Math Honor Society, through which I participated in local math competitions, which at first I didn't find interesting and didn't prepare for. The first competition that I studied for was the AMC 10A. I scoured the web for past exams, and I did the questions on each one of them, finding myself drawn to the challenge of solving problems that at first seemed impossible. It became exciting to find the contrived solutions to these problems, and the feeling of elation that I derived from the "ah!" moment of discovering the inner workings of a difficult problem was unmatched. Finally, there was something that challenged my intellect, something that wasn't mind-numbing computations from my Algebra class at school, something that challenged me to understand math at a deeper level. That year, a friend recommended me to buy a series of books called The Art of Problem Solving and join FLSAM (Florida Students' Association of Mathematics). Once the books arrived, I began with Introduction to Number Theory, doing all of the problem sets from each chapter, combing through every section. After 3 months of studying, I was chosen to be a part of the Florida ARML (American Legions Math League) team through FLSAM for 2012, which came as a complete surprise to me. 4 months before, I'd known nothing about the world of math, and here I was, basking in the glory of such an achievement. But even more importantly, I affirmed that I am a thinker, someone who isn't going to drift through life accepting everything at face-value with blind belief.

This has recently led me to a particularly dicey subject, challenging one of the core beliefs upon which I had been raised. My parents have strong beliefs about God, and I had to understand that more deeply. I took my plight to the web, reading articles and blogs and watching videos of important modern thinkers. Although I hadn't come to a concrete conclusion, some of the opinions that were forming in in my mind gravely conflicted with what my parents were saying. I sat down with them in a five hour long discussion that was sometimes emotional and sometimes intellectual as I submitted to them what I had found on the internet. To my parents' credit they had brought me up with enough love that I was not worried about any major consequences to my actions. And to this day, this is a mystery that I have not yet solved, a seemingly relentless maze of which I cannot find an exit.

Life's goal for me is to be making these same decisions over and over again, to achieve a more extensive understanding of anything that I do, to contest whichever beliefs I might not understand completely, and at a mathematical level, to see the great patterns that may exist in nature. It is important that I keep searching, because I believe that everything has its own fitting Golden Spiral.
EF_Kevin 8 / 13,321 129  
Aug 10, 2014   #2
Our planet, which may be like no other, harbors billions, if not trillions of species of flora and fauna.

This first sentence is a statement of the obvious. I bet you can do a little better! It is not good to start the paper with a statement of the obvious, because the reader might lose interest right away and stop paying attention. When that happens, it's difficult for the essay to suddenly catch her or his attention again and make a strong impression.

genuinely marvelous.

This does not say anything of real substance. The reader is likely to already know about the Fibonacci sequence and the spirals, etc. I think you should distill this paragraph into one powerful sentence that is packed with meaningful ideas, and then use the rest of the paragraph to tell about the idea you challenged.

Until the ninth grade, I was just another student: normal, without any particular passion.

And what are you now, a superhero? This sentence could be better if you omit the implication that normal students have no particular passion.

I am trying to criticize, but I have to admit you really have a great writing style...

which at first I didn't find interesting and didn't prepare for.

You have a few errors here, like wrong use of 'which' and ending the sentence with the preposition 'for'...

I think the whole essay should begin here, with the first interesting part:
A friend recommended me to buy a series of books called The Art of Problem Solving and join FLSAM (Florida Students' Association of Mathematics). Once the books arrived, I began...

This part tells a story, recommends a book series.. it is genuinely interesting! The parts above it cannot be interesting to anyone because they don't say anything specific that the reader does not already know. I think that bold sentence above should become the first sentence of the essay.

Try restarting there, and use the extra space to dig deeper and explain a few short term goals related to the idea in the essay.

Capitalize Internet.

Yeah, I really think you should start with that bold sentence and let MORE of the essay answer the prompt question. And btw, some people who are spiritual would argue that the golden section is evidence of intelligent design! Or at least intelligent transformation as we go along.


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