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6. In your opinion, what is the most important characteristic (for example, honesty, intelligence, a sense of humor) that a person can have to be successful in life? Use specific reasons and examples from your experience to explain your answer. When you write your answer, you are not limited to the examples listed in the question.

To score a "6," the essay will be a well organized one that accomplishes the two requirements of the assignment. First, focusing on a singular idea, the writer must identify an important characteristic for success. The characteristic chosen could be honesty, intelligence, or a sense of humor, or it may be a topic of the writer's preference. Second, the writer must use specific reasons and examples from his experience in explaining why the characteristic is important in helping a person be successful. The essay will have a high degree of grammatical correctness and syntactic variety but may have slight flaws in writing, consistent with timed, first draft prose.

Score 6

It is funny to have an unsuccessful person write on the topic of success. There are many characteristics required to be a successful person, undoubtedly intelligence and honesty. To me, the most important characteristic is greed. Greed makes people successful because it drives them to be successful in whatever area means success to them. It drives a person to accumulate whatever is important to the person, and it has been proven to work.

What is success to you? Is being intelligent or humorous important? With geed it does not matter. Greed allows a person to be greedy for whatever they feel makes them successful. If money is how you measure success, then be greedy with money. If humor is how you measure success, then be greedy with laughs and attention.

Greed drives a person to accumulate whatever they want. Greed makes people accumulate wealth and then, in their eyes, they become successful. For example, examine Donald Trump. He is very rich. He has accumulated much wealth. He is also greedy and in his eyes successful.

Greed works. Throughout history, greed has created most of the successful people in the world. Alexander the Great was greedy for power, land, and peace. He is still spoken with awe today. Gandhi was greedy for peace as well and was very successful. Hugh Hefner was greedy for money and women, and he was very successful.

Greed is an important characteristic for achieving success. It is the most important characteristic because it is based on personal importance, it drives a person to accumulate what he/she wants (e.g. money, knowledge) and, by the actions of people, it has been proven to work. Remember, you don't have to be greedy for money alone. Heck, I'm greedy for a good grade.

Alas, I do not possess greed. I am doomed to mediocrity for life. I would never call myself a successful person, so I really have no right to speak on the subject. I have no stocks or bonds. I don't want to be the funniest person in the room. Is it possible to be greedy of humility?

6. Comments on how this essay meets ETS criteria for a "6:"

This essay demonstrates clear competence in writing on both the rhetorical and syntactic levels

•By saying greed makes a person successful, by suggesting that it allows a person to accumulate important things, by arguing that it has been proven to work, and by developing those three points in subsequent paragraphs with specific reasons and examples, the writer has effectively addressed the writing task. He has shown how the characteristics of greed can lead to making a person successful.

•The essay has a strong thesis statement in the first paragraph, and the essay restates those key points as topic sentences in the remaining paragraphs to give the essay a tight organization. Acknowledging in the introduction that intelligence and honesty are also important ingredients in a person's success, the writer lets the reader know that greed is one of many important factors in a person's success but for the purpose of time constraint and focus, greed will be the only characteristic discussed in the essay. To conclude the essay, the writer brings the main points of the essay to a closure by restating the key points in the thesis. In a clever closing sentence to the essay, the writer poses the question: "Is it possible to be greedy of humility?"

•Paragraphs two, three, four, and five use appropriate details to support the thesis. For example, the writer uses examples of specific people (i.e., Donald Trump, Alexander the Great, Gandhi, and Hugh Hefner) as examples of people who achieved success through greed.

•The essay displays consistent facility in the use of punctuation, particularly in the use of commas (i.e., to me, the most..., if humor is how you measure success, then..., for example, examine...). There are no significant sentence structure or mechanical errors in the essay, hence making the essay have high level of polish.

•The essay has a variety of sentence structures, some of which include adverb/noun clauses (i.e., because it drives them to be successful in whatever area means success to them. ) and noun clauses (i.e., ...know that greed is one of many important factors in a

person's success...). Indicating superior control of the rhetorical aspects of writing, the writer uses some informal words (i.e., heck and funniest) in the essay in an attempt to establish a more personal connection with the reader. Additionally, the writer uses a rhetorical question (i.e., What is success to you?) to introduce the main topic of paragraph two.

•The writer also has a good command of vocabulary (i.e., accumulate, mediocrity, humility...) and transitional words (i.e., for example, then, alas...) to demonstrate appropriate word choice.