CBEST Writing Topic- Need additional perspective

connect4Threads: 1 Posts: 1	Feb 6, 2009, 02:33pm #1
Hello everyone. I'm taking the Cbest exam on Saturday and I need some feedback on my essay: Here is the Essay Instructions: Ernest Hemingway once commented, "as you get older, it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of neccessary." In an essay to be read by an audience of educated adults, state whether you agree or disagree with Hemingway's observation. Support your position with 1. logical arguments and 2. specific examples. They are also judging my response on : 1. Clarity with the central idea or point of view 2. Organization and logical sequence of my ideas 3. Support and developement: Relevance, depth 4. Usage of words, good grammar/english etc 5. Appropriateness of response for the audience Here is my response: "I agree with Hemingway's comment and understand the meaning behind it. When we are younger, we are more susceptible to idolizing another person as a hero. We are younger and things appear in a much more naive perspective. When we get older, we become more rational and less biased. What I mean by this is that we no longer view everything in the favorably biased light as when For example, a middle school student will idolize their favorite cartoon character regardless of their behavior. They will try to imitate or copy the behavior of the cartoon character regardless of what the behavior is. The difference is, that the child will always think of the cartoon character as a hero, regardless of his actions. As we grow older, we are more rational and will not idolize someone that is charismatic that portrays behaviors that are unacceptable to us. Therefore, it is harder to idolize and consider someone a hero when we are older. I also agree with his comment that heroes are necessary in life. This is because we are imperfect and it is always good to have a model that will help guide us towards the right choices. A real hero is hard to come by, but this hero is necessary because he or she will serve as a model for people. For example, someone with an overweight problem that finds it very difficult to eat less and exercise more. For this individual, it is very easy to fall back into eating too much but if they had a role model from someone who was successful in losing weight, this individual can use that successful model as a motivation to continue the process. " Which area/s would you think I need to work on? And any additional advice? Thanks in advance and much appreciated! -Mike

EF_SeanThreads: 6 Posts: 3,676 Author: Sean, EssayForum.com [Moderator]	Feb 7, 2009, 03:51am #2
Your first paragraph trails off inexplicably. Also, you might want to explain in more detail that as we get older, we tend to see both negative and positive aspects of others more clearly, and to become more likely to ascribe cynical (realistic?) motives to others. Your second paragraph would be better if it dealt with real people rather than cartoon characters. Cartoon characters tend to remain heroic. We don't stop believing in them as heroes, but as real people. With real people, though, we tend to stop seeing them as heroes. For example, many young people saw Obama on television promising change and started to idolize him as a hero. People who were a bit older may still have supported him, but they still assumed that most of what he said was a pack of lies, because he is a career politician, and that's what career politicians do. Worse, he's a career politician who succeeded in the Chicago school of politics. To many older people who understand how Chicago politics works, this means that he is almost certainly corrupt, as well. This doesn't mean that they didn't vote for him -- they may still have viewed him as the lesser of two evils, but it does mean that many of his older supporters don't think of him as a hero. Your third paragraph needs a stronger example. Overall, then, you need to work on adding more depth to your essay.