Best In Class

           The author’s argument that high school students are pressured to be number one in their class and to be the valedictorian is correct. Throughout the four years students are in high school teachers and parents put a lot of emphasis on their children or pupils to strive to be in the top ten percent. This puts a whole lot of pressure on the students because they have to be competitive and waste their time trying to claim a spot in this percentile. Sometimes they used dishonest means to get to their position in the top ten percent.

It is said that if you make it into top ten percent then you have a guaranteed spot into any college you want. This statement isn’t necessarily true because you have to actually want to succeed and be able to work hard. A lot of people who were once in top ten admitted they came by it by cheating on homework, quizzes and exams. This means they didn’t truly strive by honest means and used illegal ways to make it the top.  You should make yourself want to strive on your own so you can make your way through life on your own.

For example, 80% of the country's best students cheated to get to the top of their class. Today seventy-five to ninety-eight percent of college students say that they have used cheating in high school at least once. Most cheaters are getting one hundreds on their test while the people that are not cheating are getting nineties. This isn’t right that the people that do actually work hard are left behind while the people that breeze through and take the easy way out by cheating make it into to the top of the class. These cheaters are recognized as the most intelligent in their class even if it isn’t spoken allowed it is implied to all.

The valedictorian place is a great honor to be and everyone should be told the ground rules involved to be chosen as one. There shouldn’t be any unfair advantages because everyone should know what it takes to be a valedictorian. Everyone should be good sports about not being picked to be one and betrayal shouldn’t be even mentioned. Yes, it is wonderful to be the valedictorian because you get to congratulate the graduates on their success and you get to bid them farewell on their way to the rest of their lives.

            The statement that the honor of being a valedictorian should be able to go to the person who isn’t the smartest but the greatest at dealing with competitions pertaining to academics is both true and false because if you actually are very intelligent you should be able to be the valedictorian. The place for valedictorian should be open for anyone who wants to try obtaining the position as one. Not all intellects can handle friendly competition and sometimes the competition can use underhanded methods to position them in the place of the valedictorian.

The Great Gatsby Chapters 6-7

1)"Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace."

-What the author, F. Scotts Fitzgerald, is trying to persuade the reader of in this statement is that the character James Gatz is a fanciful man filled with whimsical ideas and has a big imagination that spins ideas from being overractive. He says that Gatz stays up until he can fall off into a oblivian filled slumber trying to live in a world of his own creation because he can't handle the world as it is at present.The author says the man needed an outlet for his corrupt mind that was fascinated with the horrible concepts of the world.(100)


2)"... the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing."

-What the author, F. Scotts Fitzgerald, is trying to persuade the reader of is that the basis of the world was founded on fanciful thoughts brought forth by different kind of men and women. He says that the thoughts that founded the world were about as solid as a fairy's wing. The author knew that this would not be a very solid example of personification because the fare folk are just made up creature which are born of myth and were created by someone with a hyperactive imagination that spend their down time filled with ridiculous thoughts and nothing else.(100)


3)"He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy."

-What the author, F. Scotts Fitzgerald, is trying to persuade the reader of in this statement is that the character Jay Gatsby is always speaking a lot of the past because he is so far stuck in it and he also wants to regain something that he had lost a while back when he had first fell in love with Daisy. The author believes that Gatsby wants to obtain something lost from his younger self that he had contained while he was with Daisy and that was misplaced when he threw himself into loving Daisy and now he is missing a huge chunk of himself.(105)


4)"Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something — an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago."

-What the author, F. Scotts Fitzgerald, is trying to persuade the reader of in this statement is that the narrator, Nick, had a spark of a vague memory of feelings and words of long ago that was triggered by the words that Gatsby was saying. He said it was just a fragmented sentence that he had heard somewhere in his past long ago that had a similiar meaning the same as what Gatsby was saying and that it was said with the same kind of emotion too that Gatsby used in his words.(93)

5)"There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together."

-What the author, F. Scotts Fitzgerald, is trying to persuade the reader of in this statement is that the narrator, Nick, feels that the characters Daisy and her husband Tom  look as though they are working together to come up with a plan. He says that there was a "air of natural intimacy" as they spoke and it gave the deceptive image that they were "conspiring together" to formulate a plan about what they should do. Nick says that although Daisy didn't look happy about what they were talking about she was still nodding along with Tom and agreeing with what he was saying.(103)

Commencement Speech at Mount Holyoke College

The author’s argument is that you should stop trying to lead a perfect life and focus on who you are really is absolutely correct. You shouldn’t have to make yourself into what the world views as the ideal image that women or men have to be. It is too much hard work trying to be perfect all the time that you lose sight of yourself. You should be able to be the same person you were when you were a kid. If you try all your life to be what someone else wants you to be, then in the future when you need to connect with yourself, you will look inside yourself and find you have no real substance to your person.

Think back when you were in elementary school, you didn’t care what anyone thought of you, you were just yourself and there was really no judgment. You didn’t really think about how you were supposed to act because that was only for the grownups. The set of rules that apply to you now didn’t come into play until you reached your first year of middle school. This is when it set in that you to follow these rules that were set up by society that instruct you on how to behave in society.

For example, when you went to a grocery store and had a temper tantrum people would stare at you and think your parents were bad parents because they couldn’t get control of you. You didn’t care what people thought you just wanted to get your way even if you were embarrassing your parents the whole time and you would usually get it because your parents didn’t want to cause a scene so they would give in just to shut you up.

The statement that we strive to be what society perceives as the ideal person you are supposed to be is true. When we go against what rules we are to follow for our sex, we get judged and called crazy. When a man wants to stay home to take of his kids it is frowned upon because men shouldn’t depend on the woman in the relationship to bring in the money to support them. Society believes that women have to be pure, but yet men don’t want a woman that is innocent. This forces you to have to show a persona in public that reflects purity, but in private men expect you to not be so innocent.

The author has the right idea in mind when she goes against the mold of society. You should learn to take risk in everything you do because if you spend so much time focused on being scared you miss many opportunities that come your way. When you look back to find that you are unhappy it is because you didn’t take many, if any, risks and just looked for the easy way out. Don’t listen to people when they say you’re crazy for wanting to be yourself and don't be afraid to go out on a limb to go after something you want.