Essay 01

I now have to write essays to practice for the SAT on October 1st. Writing is not my strong point, but I am going to post my essays on here so that I will have a record of them in case I lose the papers. This one (and probably all of the others will be digitized as written, with all misspellings and punctuation errors. The only thing I can't transfer very well is my handwriting, unless I scan it, but I'm just going to type them for now.

Here is what I had to go off of:

Prompt:
"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only which gives everything its value."
Thomas Paine

Assignment:
Do we value only what we struggle for? Plan your response, and then write an essay to explain your views on this issue. Be sure to support your position with specific points and examples. (You may use personal examples or examples from your reading, observations, or, knowledge of subjects such as history, literature, science.)

Here is what I was able to write in 25 minutes:

That which we obtain too easily we esteem too lightly. -Thomas Paine
In many cases this is true; take for example electricity. In many parts of the world there is no electrical supply available, and furthermore, it were, they would have no use for it, and quite probably not understand it. However, if they were to visit a modern city, and see what use we made of it, and we were to reciprocate by visiting a place without electricity, both parties would probably be shocked, it in different ways. There are many things that we take for granted, and yet if we lose something, say continuing on the topic of electricity, it suddenly becomes the center of our attention, when, while it is functioning normally we give no thought to it. Therefore it is obvious that we value more lightly those things which we have not experienced a loss of, or have not had to struggle to obtain. This is also demonstrated by many other things which, while commonplace here, might be unheard of in other places Take for example; cars. Many people here own cars, and do not give them a second thought, unless they cease to function normally. However, those same people might value them much more highly when the only available method of transportation was a horse, or even worse, on foot! All things considered, there is much to be said for the theory that "you must struggle for a goal to truly appriciate it" -John Sineder

Yes, I know, appriciate is spelled wrong, but I only had 22 seconds left, and I decided to skim over the whole for easily fixable problems. It's not as easy as it might seem, writing. It took 25 minutes to write this, and took up a page and two thirds, instead of the short text box on this blog. If I remember right, it was around 300 words. 

P.S. The John Sineder reference is made up. On the SAT they do not count facts against you (!?!?!) Really!