The SAT essays below are by students at the Chyten Center. They received perfect score as they were well written with originality. The students made their cases or told their stories to readers in clear fashion. These essays are also free of grammar or spelling errors.
FREEDOM ESSAY
(Received a Perfect SAT Score of 6-6)
The hours prior to inspection passed like water through a canyon. After infinite moments of torturous travel, the last thing I sought to do was convince soldiers of my identity. I took my place among the other weary and disenfranchised people in a monotonous line of exhaustion waiting to board the ship that would take us to freedom. The line shortened. The murmur faded. The soldiers grew near. The moment for which I had trained was finally before me.
I kept my gaze low so as to avoid eye contact. I fought back the tumultuous trembling emanating deep within my soul and radiating out through my body. I recited the lines I had been memorizing with the cool clarity of an accomplished actor. As the faceless soldier scanned a myriad of documents, I bit my lip and tried to act nonchalant, though inside I felt like cattle heading into slaughter. Finally, the soldier signaled for me to pass. For the first time in hours, my lungs filled with air. For the first time in years, my lungs filled with the air of freedom.
With the deliberate gate of a cougar, I strode upon the stairway toward the upper deck. I was immediately confronted by a wave of blue and white shirts. Across the sea of itinerant travelers, I located my friends and fought my way through the moribund masses to reach them. Our mouths moved with the pretense of communication but the real message came across like a silent storm. We were free.
I never realized how much more quickly the hours of a free man pass compared to those of a prisoner. After what seemed like only a few moments, we were abruptly interrupted by a cacophonous rumble of human thunder. The deck had exploded. I stretched my head over the field of heads and could distinguish, through faintly, a shadowy outline of land separating the turquoise sea and azure sky. Israel! I stood in silent wonder, allowing myself to become satiated with the magnificent sight. Filled with pure joy, we danced without any inhibition as if we had already landed on the sacred soil.
SKI ESSAY
(Received a Perfect SAT Score of 6-6)
There is nothing quite like the feel of stepping into skis, lifting up ones heels, and speeding down the slope. There is nothing quite like the feel of freshly waxed skis slipping silently through freshly fallen powder. Until recently however, these blissful clashes against pristine nature were reserved only for the rich. However, I have recently become involved in a program that teaches inner city youths how to ski.
The kids arrive early in the morning. As they march nearly single-file from the parking lot to the triple-decker lodge, the bright sun begins to slowly rise over the pointy tops of the pine trees. Tired from the bus ride up to the picturesque White Mountains of New Hampshire, the children appear to be walking in their sleep.
Once inside the lodge, several of the kids ask various teachers if they “really have to learn to ski.” Skiing is clearly is as foreign to these youngsters as the wide-open areas of land. I leave the lodge and all its wonderful smells of cafeteria food. As I start toward the slope, I can’t help but remember my first day on skis. It was a majestic morning, not unlike this one. The temperature was hovering around 30 degrees, and a few snowflakes were barely visible in their heavenly descent.
Suddenly I noticed the young students walking toward me. I turned for one last look at the mountain. There was a single streak of sunlight slashing across the glittering snow. It was as if somebody had dislodged a single slat of a boarded up window, and this was the only light coming through. My students approached me and we began our lesson. Although these youths began the day with animosity and dislike, they soon grew more enthused and anxious for more runs. By the end of the day I was ready to go to sleep on the chairlift ride, and they were begging me for “just one more run” before we all had to return to the lodge for the day.
The kids realized once they arrived that there was no way out, and that they should make the best of it. All the students and instructors eventually returned to the big blue lodge. The students packed up, and left with smiles on their faces. After that, the instructors had a meeting and then were dismissed. As everybody left the building, I sat and reflected on the day. These children came all the way from an urban environment, were thrust into a situation as well as surroundings that were completely foreign to them, and they adapted to have a great time. At that point I realized that I had not been the teacher, but rather the student, all along.
RADIO ESSAY
(Received a Perfect SAT Score of 6-6)
There is an entire invisible world, thousands of voices, passing through my body on radio waves. At this moment, I play host to tumultuous talk shows, shallow cellular phone calls, and frantic emergency broadcasts. The air that fills my lungs is replete with unwavering walls of information. At any moment I am unwillingly subjected to a barrage of top-secret military transmissions or the discordant demands and resonant proclamations emanating from baby monitors. I ease into my bed every night, the unsuspecting antenna of televisions sitcoms and spy codes. Radio is never static. Twenty-four hours a day radio is a tonic or a tumult of infinite ideas and images.
Haven to firebrands and pacifists, radio is home to all types of people. In the nether regions of the dial I’ve found charlatans and idealists alike. The radio possesses the powerful ability to connect individuals as if they are branches of a burgeoning oak. As effortlessly as radio creates images of glee and merriment with baseball commentaries and the latest pop tunes, radio also caters to propaganda and lies. During World War II, radio was the medium of choice for the Nazi Party’s demonic messages. Ironically, it also served as the bellwether of liberty for occupied nations. The unrelenting magnetism of radio can be used for good or evil with equal effectiveness.
My fervor for radio began when I was ten years old. Tuning up and down the dial, I spent my nights like a miner panning for auditory gold in rivers of silty static. I felt an awesome admiration for the far-reaching power of radio when I would chance upon faint signals from hundreds of miles away. At age thirteen, I bought my first scanning radio from a local electronics store. As it allowed me to receive signals beyond the standard AM/FM bands, my understanding of the invisible worlds in which I live grew considerably. I began to listen to emergency broadcasts from the local fire and police departments. My radio now told of robberies, fires, and loss that I could not fathom.
Emergency broadcasts became a spark of excitement in my otherwise mundane life of recreational soccer and fresh baked cookies. Every night I fell asleep listening to vibrant, emotional stories of crime and tragedy on my radio. With radio as my constant companion, my understanding of the world evolved greatly.
It is hard to believe that Guillermo Marconi could have envisioned the world to which he gave birth when he invented the long distance radio transmitter over one hundred years ago. Radio has since become a lucid beacon of provocative thought and information. Even as I write these words, radio waves float like feathers to an awaiting world. Even as I sit in class, radio continues to educate the world. Even as I lie in bed falling asleep to the soporific sounds of classical music and exigent events, radio awakens a sleeping public with its ability to rise above the landscape with the ease of a soaring eagle through the undulating air of a country canyon.
VIOLENCE ESSAY
(Received a Perfect SAT Score of 6-6)
As if the savage wails of the winds outside weren’t frightening enough, the airwaves emanating from the television set caused me to embrace my knees like they were my protectors. The tumultuous tempest radiating from the cathode ray tube was more impactful than any storm. It is often said that television can ravage one’s mind and dull one’s senses. But today, with the suddenness of a jaguar pouncing upon its ignorant prey, the television set caused me to become acutely aware of a major problem occurring in our society: media-induced violence.
With the sudden speed of a bullet, an eleven-year-old boy had become an elevenyear-old murderer. Influenced by the violent media that permeates our culture, the boy’s anger exhibited itself as a heinous crime. I know this incident was part of the pervasive problem of media violence. At that moment had an epiphany; I realized that I could no longer be still. Something had to be done. I dashed from the room. I picked up the phone. I made a call.
With that call, my life was to change forever. I was no longer the passive child, barred from making a difference in society by my own ignorance. Now, like a determined young bird emerging expeditiously from its familiar nest into a world of reality, I was determined to take my own stand within society. I decided to begin a movement in my school to increase people’s awareness of the negative influences of media violence on children. At our first meeting, only two people came. Then with the unexpectedness of an arrow, something incomprehensibly dreadful happened, (something that both stunned our country and taught us an invaluable lesson.) The Columbine School shooting had occurred.
The next day, the head of my school called me and asked our group to enlighten the student body as to the dark influences of media violence on children. I agreed, knowing that the students yearned for a sense of guidance and a platform on which they could rest their questions, fears and uncertainties about the influences of media violence. I was determined that we, like a sole star poised in an eternity of darkness, would be that platform, that bright oasis of comfort.
In doing research for our presentation, I learned that media violence could create the image that the world is a dark place, full of violence and hatred. Consequently, a child may fear being a victim of violence, which can lead to a strong mistrust of others. I found that the media glamorizes violence, and in this idealistic mode, violence has a strangely compelling mien, which further intensifies the strength of its impact. Despite the negative effects of media violence on children, the entertainment industry advertises its violent product to kids. The Federal Trade Commission found that 80% of the 44 best selling movies rated R for violence were targeted at children.
Yet the media is more than violence. It offers so much promise and so much genuine truth. Despite the harmful influences of media violence on children, the media can also affect our country in positive ways. For example, the media encourages us to search for the truth. It presents us with current global information that helps to bind us together as one human race. Media can be a valuable tool, or it can be a dangerous weapon.
Then the night of the presentation came. To my surprise, as I stepped into the school auditorium, I saw an incredible number of individuals. These were individuals who held within them the burning desire to improve our community. They were individuals who wanted to shelter us from the chains of media violence that bound our student body, our country. I then stepped onto the podium. I took a deep breath. I slowly smiled. I am making a difference, I thought. A sense of inspiration seeped through my whole body. Slowly I pushed the words out of my mouth and I gently opened my eyes. “We are all making a difference,” I said.
POETRY CLUB ESSAY
(Received a Perfect SAT Score of 6-6)
I was curled up in my feather blanket, crouching over a book of poetry by Pablo Neruda. His words, sharp and vibrant, held my attention like a child about to be served an ice cream sundae. I anticipated his fluid language and honesty before I read each line. Yet, even though I was engrossed in the poetry, I felt a hollowness creep up on me like a jaguar in a hazy jungle. I had no one with whom to share my interest.
I decided to change my life. Within a week, I had developed a plan to start a poetry organization at my school. After a plethora of different announcements to grab the attention of the students, I was ready to have the first Poetry Club meeting. Six people showed up. Together we devoured a poem by Emily Dickinson, analyzing word for word the symbolism and metaphors embedded in the piece. Was I ready to take my interest in poetry to the next level?
After two months of weekly meetings, I, with the help of members from the poetry club, decided to have an open-mike night at my school. I was incredibly nervous the night of the reading. What if people would not show up? How will students react when I read my own poem? My fears battered against my ribs like caged birds.
I was exuberant when I saw forty students and teachers sprawled on the pillow facing the stage we had set up. For two hours, people read their own work or poems that they admired. Before I began to read my own poem, I looked out from the podium into a sea of support. I was no longer alone. My sense of isolation evaporated and contentment washed over my body like a cleansing wave.