Essay prompts from the most recent SAT administration
Below are essay prompts from the most recent SAT administration in January 2012.
Prompt 1
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
Most people tend to trust others too readily. To avoid being taken advantage of, however, it is generally wise to be doubtful and suspicious of others' motives or honesty. Many people would agree that if you find yourself doubting other people's sincerity or questioning their intentions, your instincts are probably correct. You are less likely to regret being cautious than being too trusting.
Assignment: Is it wise to be suspicious of the motives or honesty of other people, even those who appear to be trustworthy? 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.
Prompt 2
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
People who complain about progress and change expose themselves to criticism. Yet there is always a subtle danger in life's improvements and refinements, a drawback or disadvantage that occurs along with the benefits of progress. It sometimes seems that we devote half of our time to making what we call "improvements"—in our lives, our work, our relationships—but so often the original conditions had some quality that is lost in the process of change.
Adapted from E.B. White, "Progress and Change"
Assignment: Does improvement or progress usually involve a significant drawback or problem of some kind? 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.
Prompt 3
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
Learning and doing are their own rewards. No external rewards are required. Yet when external rewards are introduced—whether attention and praise from parents or prizes from teachers—these rewards exert a substantial influence. Instead of reading books to find out about the world, kids will read to win prizes. Kids will produce for rewards, but the quality of their activity and their interest in it will be dramatically altered.
Adapted from Barry Schwartz, The Costs of Living
Assignment: Is it wrong or harmful to motivate people to learn or achieve something by offering them rewards? 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.
Prompt 4
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
We almost always tend to treat people on the basis of what they have done: the star athlete is recognized and rewarded with a college scholarship, while the lawbreaker is prosecuted and punished. But our past deeds provide only a partial measure of our real worth as human beings. We should be treated according to what we are capable of accomplishing, regardless of what we may or may not have actually done.
Assignment: Should people be treated according to what they are capable of achieving instead of what they have actually done? 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.
