TEXAS B: - CHINA AS A GLOBAL SUPERPOWER

When I was growing up, the word 'China' only brought up images of fried rice and Jackie Chan. I faintly remember seeing the words 'Made in China' on every electronic or piece of clothing I owned but nowadays as China ascends to a global superpower, the name 'China' seems to be everywhere: seemingly in every newspaper article and on every news station. Even at the 2012 US presidential elections, China was discussed as its own topic and question.

As I heard more and more about China I began to research the country and the culture. It was so blatantly different than the western culture that I had been shrouded in. What really stuck out the most were the characters that are used in Chinese, the Hanzi. They were so enigmatical and fascinating and so different from the letters that I use in English. China fascinated me so intensely that I immediately jumped at the opportunity to take Chinese when it was available at my school.

I began learning Chinese when I was in seventh grade, drawn to the language by the enigmatical yet fascinating characters. As the number of words I learned and would have to lean increased, I began to regret my decision. There were plenty of times where I wanted to quit learning Chinese, I would complain that it was too hard and that clearly I was not smart enough to learn it. However, despite my pleas I continued with the language all the way until my senior year in High School. Out of all of my classes I would definitely rank my Chinese class as the most difficult class but the most rewarding. Nearly one-fifth of the people in the world speak Chinese and I retain pride in knowing that I can communicate with these people. When people learn that I spoke Chinese, they are always flabbergasted. They always tell me that they never would have I am bound to be rich in the future. And when I order my food in Chinese at a Chinese restaurant the waiters are just as shocked. They tell me that they never would have expected me to be able to speak Chinese.

I plan to always use Chinese in the future and I always want be connected to China, regardless of its economic status whether I am just a businessman in China or whether I am the Secretary of State who is visiting China to have a meeting with the president of China.

The emergence of China as a global super power has shaped my past, present, and will eventually shape my future.

***** I'm not entirely finished yet but I just wanted to see if my essay at least fits the prompt... thank you!

You switch between past and present tense a lot in this essay. Pick one and stick with it. I recommend sticking to present tense, but that's just me.


I'm not sure what you were trying to get at here, but this sentence doesn't make sense.


I like that you're using personal anecdotes in your essay but this one feels kind of random, like you just threw it in for fun. We know people are shocked when they find out you can speak Chinese; you told us that in the sentence before. Either tell us why this experience is different and important enough to have a special mention in your essay, or take it out.


This is kind of an awkward conclusion. I think you should just say that you want to continue to use Chinese wherever life may take you. You don't really need to say that you might be a businessman or Secretary of State or whatever. Keep it simple.

Overall, this essay is really strong. It's well written in general, although you have a few little erros that disrupt the flow. I'm not entirely sure what the prompt was since you didn't explicitly state it, but judging by your title I'm guessing it asked you to discuss an issue of importance and how it relates to you. If I'm right here, then I think you've half-answered the prompt. If your "issue of importance" is going to be China as a global superpower, then you should talk about China as a global superpower, why you feel this is an issue, and why you feel it is important. If you add in stuff about that, then you'll be golden.