AP essay review

2005: Question 2 - deconstructed response about marketing from The Onion

I would have answered this question by discussing the mocking tone that comments on how gullible consumers are, and how the media and advertising uses gaudy and impressive language to convince consumers to buy a product they don't really need. The article exaggerates the issues one could possibly have with an ankle or a foot, and flat out makes up issues such as "the frequency of one's foot is out of alignment with the Earth," and then exaggerates the positive effect this product could have. The article also employs the use of quotations from a customer, mocking the American consumers even further. The article as a whole warns the general public against these marketing ploys through its use of humor, exaggeration, and clearly made-up facts and statements.

Sample essays:
failures:
-"subtle jokes"
-focused more on satire itself (definition), not how the satire portrayed marketing and consumers
-not enough analysis

successes:
-embedded quotes well, paired with impressive analysis
-references to outside events or people

Like one of the successful sample essays I would have focused most of my argument by embedding quotes from the passage and analyzing their ridiculousness and how they satirize consumers and marketing techniques. Unlike any of the sample essays I would have also commented on human nature and how we as humans always want the "next best thing," and always want more, even if we do not need it. I would then tie this to marketing and how even ridiculous ads are successful, because consumers are gullible and will buy cool, new products, because they sound too good to be true (and are indeed too good to be true).

I believe I would have been successful on this prompt. I chose it because I saw "satire," which is something I have never been good at recognizing, nor writing about. But in this article the satire was painstakingly obvious, and the moral implications displayed were also made clear.