question about writing sample

[Legend]

As everyone knows, using great examples can help write a better essay.
My question is:

Do the examples have to be true and real?

ex)What if I say something like 'President GORE recently legalized COCAINE according to the will of his constitutents or something like that? (---borrowing topic from April MCAT 2001)

I am not sure if I can also slightly twist reality to support my argument better.

Any suggestions?

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[EricDeStampede]

I doubt that the Gore thing will go well with the scorer.
Well, I fibbed a bit on my MCAT. I talked about the Kursk submarine (remember? the Russian one that sank last summer?), but I didn't remember the captain's name. So, I made up something like Lutoslawski or something.
Things like that you can probably get away with. I did. yea.

 

[Legend]

Originally posted by EricDeStampede:
•I doubt that the Gore thing will go well with the scorer.
Well, I fibbed a bit on my MCAT. I talked about the Kursk submarine (remember? the Russian one that sank last summer?), but I didn't remember the captain's name. So, I made up something like Lutoslawski or something.
Things like that you can probably get away with. I did. yea.•

I know what you mean.
But, do those graders care about the validity of the examples as well?
I am a bit confused. What if a grader is a ****** who doesn't know much about history, politics, etc?

 

[spacecadet]

In my Kaplan class, they specifically told us that we could make up examples if we couldn't think of a real one.

I wouldn't twist reality the way you mentioned though. Start clean - don't use famous people. Otherwise, you might annoy the person grading your essay.

What I did was come up with a few examples that applied to a broad range of topics. Of course, I have put the whole thing out of my mind and I couldn't even tell you what I wrote about on the test.

Pam

 

[VC15]

Originally posted by Legi:
•As everyone knows, using great examples can help write a better essay.
My question is:

Do the examples have to be true and real?

ex)What if I say something like 'President GORE recently legalized COCAINE according to the will of his constitutents or something like that? (---borrowing topic from April MCAT 2001)

I am not sure if I can also slightly twist reality to support my argument better.

Any suggestions?•

My TPR teacher says that you can make it up as long as it isn't blatantly obvious you're doing so... so if instead of using Gore, you just used some random guy from some other less well known country, you should be able to get by. They only read your essay for about 2 minutes, after all...

 

[Sonya]

well, i haven't looked a lot into writing sample yet, just done a few practice essays. but should the examples be very specific?