SAT Essay Examples范文合集

第一篇：SAT Essay Examples

Examples from history carry great weight because they are events that actually happened, and they are likely to resonate with anyone who has any knowledge of the topic you’re writing about.Focus on both historical events and historical figures that are well known and have many different aspects that you might discuss—people and events that brought about revolutionary change in society are always good choices.But remember, the bigger the event, the more information you might have to memorize, so you would have to know an awful lot about an example like “World War II” to put something that broad on your list.Narrowing such a broad topic down to a manageable size, such as the Holocaust, the use of the atomic bomb against Japan, will generally be more effective.Also remember to avoid presenting inaccurate information in your essay or trying to pass something off as a fact that you're actually not sure about.Some suggestions:

wars and related events: the causes of the American Revolution, the causes of the French Revolution, the Trail of Tears, the causes or the aftermath of the Civil War, the Holocaust, America’s use of the atomic bomb against Japan, the Marshall Plan, McCarthyism, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War(which could be divided into many subtopics like the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the My Lai Massacre, and the Kent State Massacre)

major technological developments: the construction of the transcontinental railroad, the invention of the airplane, the advent of radio or television, space travel, the birth of the Internet

major social and economic events: the stock market crash of 1929, the Great Depression, the American civil rights movement, India’s independence from Britain, the end of apartheid in South Africa, corporate scandals at the beginning of the 21st century(Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, etc.)important thinkers: Lao Tzu(Lao Zi), Confucius, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx

revolutionaries and activists: Siddhartha Gautama(the Buddha), Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Martin Luther, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B.Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Helen Keller, Mohandas Gandhi, Clarence Darrow, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela

other influential politicians: Benjamin Franklin, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Rooseveltinventors and scientists: Gregor Mendel, the Curies, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, George Washington Carver, Albert Einstein, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen Hawking

writers, artists, musicians, entertainers: Ludwig van Beethoven, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Lenny Bruce, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, John Belushi, Richard Pryor, Chris Farley

tyrants: King Louis XVI, Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong.Although examples from literature usually aren’t strictly factual, they reflect universal truths about society and human nature.Therefore, they can be very powerful if you are able to demonstrate a nuanced understanding of the works and characters you discuss.Some suggestions:

Greek classics: The Iliad, The Odyssey, Antigone, Oedipus Rex

English classics: Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales

Shakespeare’s plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, MacBeth

the Bronte sisters’ novels: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights

The Scarlet Letter(Nathaniel Hawthorne)

Dickens’ novels(very rich sources of both interesting characters and important ideas): Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities

Dostoevsky’s novels: Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov

Little Women(Louisa May Alcott)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(Mark Twain)

The Great Gatsby(F.Scott Fitzgerald)

A Farewell to Arms(Ernest Hemingway)

Invisible Man(Ralph Ellison)

Brave New World(Aldous Huxley)

1984(George Orwell)

Lord of the Flies(William Golding)

The Catcher in the Rye(J.D.Salinger)

Catch-22(Joseph Heller)

Fahrenheit 451(Ray Bradbury)

To Kill a Mockingbird(Harper Lee)

Toni Morrison’s novels: Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Sula

The Things They Carried(Tim O’Brien)

The Education of Little Tree(Forrest Carter)

Neal Stephenson’s novels: Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, The Baroque Cycle

A good way to quickly develop a repertoire of examples from literature is to read short but significant worksthat contain important ideas about human nature and society:

Candide(Voltaire)

parts of Walden and other essays by Thoreau

“Billy Budd, Sailor”(Herman Melville)

A Christmas Carol(Charles Dickens)

The Metamorphosis(Franz Kafka)

The Awakening(Kate Chopin)

The Old Man and the Sea, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”(Ernest Hemingway)The Pearl, Of Mice and Men(John Steinbeck)

The Stranger(Albert Camus)

Animal Farm(George Orwell)

Night(Elie Wiesel)The advantage of using examples in this category is that you probably know more about your own life than you do about any academic subject, so you can usually write about these examples in great detail and with real feeling.The process of coming up with examples from personal experience is also helpful in preparing to write your college application essays, so remember to save this information.Some suggestions:

a trip out of the country that exposed you to another culture

a volunteer experience in which you met people who inspired or influenced you

a work experience that taught you about the importance of hard work, discipline, teamwork, etc.an experience that required you to overcome your fear or to demonstrate resourcefulness or creativity

a person you have encountered who inspired you with his or her heroism, self-sacrifice, wisdom, etc.your parents, siblings, friends, classmates, etc.: the lessons you’ve learned from interacting with or observing them.Events or trends in society, or people who are influencing the world in a profound way now, can also be great examples.Think about the kinds of things you read about in magazines, newspapers, or Internet news sources.Some suggestions:

the widespread use of advanced communications technology(cell phones and the Internet)contemporary entertainment(television, movies, video games)

the war in Iraq(Abu Ghraib, weapons of mass destruction, conflicts between religious and ethnic groups)

the Israeli/Palestinian conflict

philanthropists and activists: Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, Bono, Aung San Suu Kyi(Burmese democracy activist), Greenpeace

global warming/global climate change

alternative energy sources vs.fossil fuels

genocide in Darfur(a region of Sudan)

proliferation of nuclear weapons(Iran and North Korea)

epidemics: drug-resistant strains of various diseases, AIDS, malaria, the threat of bird and swine fluthe growing economic power of India and China(and the loss of jobs in the U.S.)

U.S.-China relations

China-Taiwan relations

the economic crisis beginning in 2008 and the reform of the banking and finance industrythe 2008 U.S.presidential election and the Obama presidency

the debate over health care legislation