Open Prompt Three

Prompt 3 (2003) asked students to explore works of literature in which a tragic hero brought suffering upon others, and how that made the work as a whole more tragic.

LLLL. Honestly, I was a little surprised that this essay received a nine. Sure, they used a lot of vocab words like "malicious" and "synecdochical," but I felt like it could have been better. Obviously no AP essay will be perfect, but I thought there were some issues that would probably have led to me giving it at most an eight. For example, the thesis isn't very clear. It states that "[The Great Gatsby] is entirely tragic in scope on all three scales of tragedy - personal, inter-personal, and societal." However, the prompt dealt with the effect that tragic figures have on others, and while this was explored later in the essay, the thesis doesn't cover it in my opinion. I also felt that this essay was a bit too wordy at some points, which led to redundancy that could have been avoided. For example, one paragraph begins with "Gatsby's flaws lead to his own demise and subsequent death," which I thought was kind of pointless because it's basically saying that Gatsby's death led to his death. Sure, wording it that way looks nicer and gets more words on the page, but it doesn't make sense if you actually think about it. I could just be nit-picky, though - the essay does do a good job of explaining the thesis and developing all of its points.

C. I wish I could take points off for people's handwriting but that would be unfair (and also totally hypocritical). Still, why cursive? Anyways, I thought this essay was pretty good and I agree with the score it got, a seven. I definitely agree with what the grader said, which was that while it was "generally well organized with some insight, the essay's development [was] not particularly thorough." The writer seemed to understand the material they chose. For example, they were able to make points about how  Lear's big mistake (dividing his land) led to his losing his daughters because of the "greed and envy the division fueled." While that is a good analysis, they probably could have gone into more depth. That's something that I find applies to most of the essay - they definitely understood what they were writing about, they just needed to go into greater detail. I do find it reassuring that this essay got a seven. I think this is around the level of essay I could write, and a seven is still a solid score in my opinion.

FF. I think this is another case of an essay being scored too high. This essay seemed really basic to me - half of it was a plot summary, and some points weren't even correct. For example, at one point, the student says that "[McMurphy] is killed at the end by the hands of Nurse Ratched." Spoilers for anyone who hasn't read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, that's not what happens. While it could be argued that the nurse's treatment of McMurphy takes away his will to live, if the student wanted to make that point they should have just said it. Chief Bromden is the character who actually kills McMurphy. I also disliked the organization of the essay. The plot summary could have been ok, as most of it was detailing the various tragic outcomes that McMurphy's presence led to. However, I would have liked to see more analysis mixed in with the summarizing, as opposed to saving it for the end.