First, a big fat warning, like the ones on those TV commercials. But instead of "DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS — PROFESSIONAL DRIVER ON CLOSED COURSE" I feel I need to say in the strongest possible terms: DO NOT CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING A MODEL ESSAY FOR YOUR SATs!

I had a couple of unfair advantages when I set out to try RocketScore to evaluate my practice SAT essay. It isn't just that I've spent more than half my life writing for a living, it's that, in the kind vernacular of my family, I can "sling it" pretty well — that is, hold forth on a new subject with enough energy to mostly mask my lack of actual knowledge. I was a full-time student as recently as four years ago, so I know something of academic boilerplate. And, I took the practice test in the comfy confines of my desk at home, composing on a computer instead of writing in longhand as real SAT essay test-takers must do.

I did try to write as my 16-year-old self would have written: full of opinion bolstered by some facts, enthusiastic about the wrongs of America, somewhat casual in my specific references but close enough to the mark to be occasionally convincing.

I wrote fast, finishing in 20 minutes. (And true to my teenage self, I did not look back, but spent the remaining five minutes fiddling with my watch and thinking about pizza.) I did not completely succeed, because my true 16-year-old self would not have hit the top score of 800, as this attempt did, but I did get a sense of the SAT essay experience, as well as the user-friendly nature of RocketScore.

On www.rocketreview.com, after clicking on RocketScore, I selected this question:

"Write an essay that discusses this statement. You may use illustrations from history, literature, current events, or your own experience or personal observation: "No progress is possible without sacrifice."

Here is what I wrote, interspersed with the comments I got back from RocketScore a short time later:

"No progress is possible without sacrifice" is a sentiment that surfaces throughout American history, and has by turns been used to justify ill-treatment of people, encourage nationalistic pride, motivate athletes, students and statesmen. This is a paradoxical statement, as it insists that some form of sacrifice is behind every success, a thought embraced by American rhetoric and tradition, yet widely rejected in reality, by a population that looks for the smoother road, not the rocky path, at every opportunity.

In the days preceding the settling of the colonies that would become the United States of America, British companies sent their sharpest traders and businessmen to develop trade and commerce networks. Leaving the comforts of a civilized home for the rough frontier was a challenge to these men, and later, their families. Clergy and others sent to the New World likewise suffered damage to their health and lifespan by taking up the work in the colonies. (NOTE: My pronouns got me in trouble: "A human SAT grader would find your ideas easier to follow if you reviewed your pronouns and made sure that each one referred to a specific noun," is what RocketScore gently told me.)

Despite their different missions, these early colonizers were regarded as heroes for the sacrificial nature of their work here. The traditional teaching of Early American history describes these individuals — from Christian missionaries and pilgrims to Hudson Bay merchants to statesman Benjamin Franklin — as larger than life and hugely influential. To a one, they espoused the philosophy embodied in this quotation that links sacrifice to success.

With the Revolutionary War, the leaders of the about-to-form nation called on this sentiment to galvanize soldiers and their families to support a war effort that would leave thousands dead, ill, widowed, fatherless. This jingoistic approach to creating patriotism is not uniquely American, certainly, but few nations have employed it to such great effect, so often, and in such a short period of time.

The Civil War era saw the promotion of sacrifice for a greater success promoted in a huge and highly effective manner, particularly in the South, where personal sacrifice of land, monies, and troops would be offered up in the name of regional pride. World War I saw this cruelly false mantra repeated, as a generation of young American men was decimated, and Americans at home were entreated to demonstrate their patriotism by supporting the war effort without question, or complaint about myriad material sacrifices asked of them. (NOTE: This is surely the paragraph that caused RocketScore to spit back: "Fancy (SAT-type) words impress human graders, but using too many fancy words can seem like you're trying to show off.")

The Great Depression of the late 1920s into the 1930s followed the first real epoch in American history in which "sacrifice=success" was thrown out the window. Anyone could call him or herself a stockbroker, and speculation was the most popular pastime in America. When the bottom fell out of the stock market in 1929, it was a grim reminder of the Calvinistic tone of the sentiment. Suffering and sacrifice became so common that it was understandably seen as the precursor to any success.

The heyday of Jim Crow laws would allow this notion to be used in an especially insidious manner, as even liberal anti-segregationists saw the route to equality as something to be followed very slowly. Sacrifice in the form of continued poverty and lack of equal education, housing, medical care and legal protections was the price African Americans needed to pay in order to someday see the Constitution and Bill of Rights truly apply to themselves.

The post-World War II America began to move away from this sentiment. Since the 1950s the notion that sacrifice is inherently noble, or at least a good and moral thing, has been steadily eroded. From housekeeping to child-rearing, Americans have gradually increased the number of services they farm out to others. By the Vietnam era, even patriotism and its sacrifices were sneered at. Easy credit replaced the drudgery of saving.

Ecology-minded groups and the so-called Voluntary Simplicity movement are perhaps the closest thing today to a popular acceptance and espousal of "No progress is possible without sacrifice." Save water and recycle for the reward of a healthier planet. Pay more for goods made in fair-market settings, not sweatshops. Yet one would be hard-pressed to make a case that the majority of Americans really believe that their personal sacrifice will lead to personal success. We remain a nation fiercely proud of success, so proud that achieving it by any means remains more common than the high-minded ideal expressed in this sentiment.

(A FINAL NOTE: RocketScore urged me to write longer and fewer paragraphs: "High-scoring SAT essays usually have between 4 and 6 paragraphs, with an average of 5. Consider grouping related ideas under the same paragraph ... and try to develop the ideas within each paragraph in more detail," it advised me.)