Cracking The SAT Premium

The order of Kennedy’s speech is carefully constructed to emotionally captivate the listener.
This is a skill that political speechwriters must have, or they will probably not keep their jobs
very long. Kennedy’s opening brings the listeners in by making them feel as if space exploration
is their responsibility (which makes them continue to listen earnestly). The middle of the speech
addresses doubts and concerns, which reassures people and makes them feel as if Kennedy is
forthright. The ending discusses the benefits that the listeners will reap and wraps up with a tie
in to several previously mentioned points, which gives the speech a nice closure. In his last
sentence, Kennedy entreats God for a blessing, which ends the speech on a humble note. All of
these pieces fit together in exactly that order to ensure that the listener will feel all of those
things. If Kennedy had begun humble and ended doubtful, the listeners would get the feeling that
he wasn’t very confident.

There is no correct response here as there are many possible answers. Here are three of the
effective parts of the speech that you could write about. However, if you wrote a different set of
three, that’s fine. You should pick whichever three seemed the most effective to you.

Nostalgia for the listener’s pioneering heritage (Appeal to Emotion)

Addressing the concern that America is already behind in the space race (Appeal to Logic)

Pointing out the local benefits (Appeal to Logic)