488 McGRAW-HILL’S SAT
I took it as a personal challenge. I guess I felt a lot like an athlete feels when he loses a playoff game, but
knows that, if he had just worked harder, he could have won the whole championship. So I started to look into
physics. I picked up a book called “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” about a Noble Prize–winning physicist
and how he saw the world. I was hooked. Richard Feynman convinced me that trying to solve the great riddles
of physics could be profoundly rewarding, and even fun.
It helped a great deal, too, I think, that I was now confronting physics on my own terms. I wasn’t reading
this book because it was assigned, but because I wanted to read it (and because my dad said it was hilarious).
And I wasn’t thinking about physics because I had a test to study for, but because the problems were interest-
ing to think about.
If I had gotten an A on that physics test, instead of a C−, I probably would not have gotten mad enough to
venture into the world of physics on my own. I would not have immersed myself in the relativistic twin para-
dox, or the question of how black holes are formed. I could have done the opposite, as my friends have done,
and just shunned science for the rest of my life. I’m glad I didn’t. Sometimes losing can be more valuable than
victory, if losing opens new doors.
Evaluation:This essay provides a creative first-person narrative supporting the view that “sometimes a loss, hard
fought, is more valuable than an easy victory.” It uses colloquial language, but with a consistent and focused point
of view. The narrative remains focused on examining the author’s “loss” in a particularly difficult science class and
how she refocused herself as a result. Although connections to other such “losses” would have strengthened the essay,
the overall effect is very strong. It does not receive the highest possible score, however, because it does not explore
the general implications of its thesis, and so its conclusion is somewhat incomplete.