I was a bit surprised by my essay score, and I'm still not sure what essentially I should work on to do better next time. The only thing I can think of is that maybe it's too short, but it seems to me this shouldn't be a main consideration. I copied the essay here, exactly as written in the test (I'm aware of some grammar and spelling mistakes). Please tell my how would you score this (from 1 to 6) and offer advice. Thank you.
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ESSAY PROMPT
The making of illusions--misleading images or ideas that appear to be authentic or true--has become the primary business of our society. Included in this category are not only the false promises made by advertisers and politicians but all of the activities which supposedly inform, comfort, and improve us, such as the work of our best writers and our most influential leaders. These promises and activities only encourage people to have unrealistic expectations and to ignore facts. Adapted from Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image
ASSIGNMENT
Are people overly influenced by unrealistic claims and misleading images?
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We live in an age of information. Significant advancement in science gave us unprecedented quality and quantity of knowledge about the world we live in, and was coupled with advancement in technology, which made it possible to transmit and share this knowledge in the click of a button. However, the same technology made it possible to deliver tremendous amounts of lies and illusions, perhaps to the point of making our age the age of dissinformation as well.
The internet is obviously the most powerful example for this paradox. The convinience and speed with which one can attain information about almost anything, is truly amazing. Google, the famous search engine, plays a big roll in this phenomena. But if you search "Jews" in Google, the first result is a web site titled "Jew-Watch", the work of a delusional antisemite, spreading lies to people of his kind. Technology that makes it possible to spread knowledge, also helps spread ignorance around the globe.
But despite all of this, it seems that in the long run, the roll of technology in our society is positive. Even though it's hard sometimes to descriminate between true and false knowledge, it's better than having no information at all, and being limited to the narrow world of your imediate surroundings. Surely, skepticism and carefulness are mendatory now days, but that had always been the case. At least today, the one who uses these tools with great attention and an honest desire for knowledge and truth, can achieve more and better insight and understanding, than even the greatest minds who lived in the past, and who, relativly to us, lived in the dark.
in the first paragragh, you should write: Making illusions, misleading images or ideas,...
I think it would be better to write : we live in an era of information.
The is redundant in the second paragraph and the second essay : Internet is obviously powerful ...
as you said there are also some typos in your writing, like: now days : that must be : nowadays.
The question is more about intentional deception, which is why the examples of business leaders and advertisers were used. Your critique of technology doesn't respond to this question, because we can't really attribute intentional actions to search engines.
