"Is having too many choices a problem?" SAT Essay May 2015

Well, I am preparing for the SAT and I wonder if you guys , EF_Contributers and members , can give me some feedbacks , correct my essay and grade it out of 6. Thanks for advance!!!

SAT May 2015 Essay:

Prompt:
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
In today's complex society there are many activities and interests competing for our time and attention. We tend to think that the more choices we have in life, the happier we will be. But having too many options-choices about how to spend our time or what interests to pursue-can be overwhelming and can make us feel like we have less freedom and less time.

Adapted from Jeff Davidson, "Six Myths of Time Management"

Assignment: Is having too many choices a problem? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

My Essay:

In the human maze , one can face plenty of choices ,during his surviving but only one is suitable to solve life's enigma and thus, achieving success and happiness .That's why, I firmly believe that we shouldn't have many choices.

The abundance of choices, be it in school, in social life or in family is the mark of a superficial personality.In fact,I believe that people who,for example, want to drink, to read a novel, to go for walk, to practice sport just to entertain lack critical thinking, wisdom and straightforwardness. At this point, I ponder that those people must engage in a mind-blogging meditation to drown deeply in each choice, analyze it thoroughly , criticize its lapses and then make nothing but one choice because insofar as a person fails to make up his mind and pick a unique choice for him, he will fail to build a clear perspective in life , he will struggle to fit with his unreasonable lust to experience all the possible choices, though, he can not materialize any of them because he have no vision. That's why I believe that the diversity in choices could lead a person to mental, illness, grief and despair.

For a broader perspective, I see that a government leading a nation, be it developed or under-developed country, who considers a lot of choices for economy, foreign policy or demography, is doomed to fail to achieve people's dreams and aspirations. For instance, I believe that, this type of government will be the cause of a systematic mess in all fields. And at certain level of suffering or injustice, the country will explode, riots will topple the head of the state and chaos will reign. Arab Winter is case in point, from recent history. In fact after toppling dictators in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Egypt, fresh governments failed to stick to a clear plan that's why chiefs were perplexed, lost and thus weak. They tried plenty of economic, social and financial choices without succeeding in any of them which caused stagnation in investments, a decline in GDP and a fall in states' status. Finally, Arab people suffered again from the same dilemmas: more unemployment, more poverty and more hunger. That's the high cost of having too many choices.

To conclude, I can assert that the diversity in interest can by no mean foster a sense of self-esteem and serenity for an individual and cannot, at a large scale, be effective to stimulate the prosperity of a nation.

Hi Dawn01,

I like the way you introduce your idea. You only need stronger reasons for your thesis statement. Anyway, do not write a long sentence with many punctuation marks if you are not very sure of their usage.


Allow me to rewrite it:
In the human maze, one can face plenty of choices. During his survival, however, only one choice would be suitable to solve the life's enigma and eventually achieve success as well as happiness. Furthermore, an overwhelming number of choices often makes people feeling paralyzed, and it causes many problems. Hence, I firmly believe that we should not have too many options.

Another thing is that I recommend you to write a five-paragraph structure with 2 supporting arguments and one against (It is better if you have both sides of the argument in your essay).

Body 1 and 2: supporting argument
Body 3: opposing argument
However, if you do not have any idea to show an opposing argument, you can write using a four-paragraph structure with only 2 supporting arguments.

Hope this helps :)

Thank you lisa_severus for help but I really mean" demography" ,which is the study of population fertility rate,growth in population , infant mortality rate.. not democracy :)

Thanks shintacandrade for help also !!

But I would like to see more feedbacks . Please grade my essay out of 6 :)