Egoism vs. altruism

　　A true individualist wants the best for himself, so he seeks out the best, no mater who is the source. To the individualist, the truth is more important than any authority, including himself.

　　The first confusion is to confound altruism with kindness, generosity, and helping other people. Altruism demands more than kindness: it demands sacrifice. The billionaire who contributes $50,000 to a scholarship fund is not acting altruistically; altruism goes beyond simple charity. Altruism is the grocery bagger who contributes $50,000 to the fund, foregoing his own college education so that others may go. Parents who spend a fortune to save their dying child are helping another person, but true altruism would demand that the parents spend their money to save ten other children, sacrificing their own child so that others may live.

　　We are taught that ``selfishness'' consists of dishonesty, theft, even bloodshed, usually for the sake of the whim of the moment.

　　Reason is individualistic. No person can think for another; thought is an attribute of the individual. One can start with the ideas of another, but each new discovery, each creative step beyond the already known, is a product of the individual. And when an individual does build on the work and ideas of others, he is building on the work of other individuals, not on the ideas of ``society.''

　　成功和失败Winners & Losers

　　The word “winner” and “loser” have many meanings. When we refer to a person as a winner, we do not mean one who makes someone else lose. To us, a winner is one who responds authentically by being credible, trustworthy, responsive, and genuine, both as an individual and as a member of a society.

　　Winners do not dedicate their lives to a concept of what they imagine they should be; rather, they are themselves and as such do not use their energy putting on a performance, maintaining pretence and manipulating others. They are aware that there is a difference between being loving and acting loving, between being stupid and acting stupid, between being knowledgeable and acting knowledgeable. Winners do not need to hide behind a mask.

　　Winners are not afraid to do their own thinking and to use their own knowledge. They can separate facts from opinions and don’t pretend to have all the answers. They listen to others; evaluate what they say, but come to their own conclusions. Although winners can admire and respect other people, they are not totally defined, demolished, bound or awed by them.

　　Winners do not play “helpless”, nor do they play the blaming game. Instead, they assume responsibility for their own lives.

　　If you want to learn the secrets of success, it seems perfectly reasonable to study successful people and organizations, but studying successes without also looking at failures tends to create a misleading — if not entirely wrong — picture of what it takes to succeed. But the performance of any given firm is influenced by many random events beyond the control of managers.

　　乌托邦

　　Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia in 1516. The work was written in Latin and it was published in Louvain (present-day Belgium). Utopia is a work of satire, indirectly criticizing Europe's political corruption and religious hypocrisy.

　　Aristotle's ideas of aesthetics, justice and harmony are present in the Utopian's philosophy. In the 1800s, the rise of urban industrialization triggered the proliferation of Utopian projects (agricultural communes), all of which failed.

　　Utopia became the project of creating an ideal society apart from the demoralizing city. These Utopian projects were especially popular in Britain, France, and New England. The Utopian celebration of common property and dependence upon extensive state planning are the groundwork for communism and socialism as presented in Marx and Engels' written works.

　　如果说SAT作文的论点是一篇文章的骨架，那么这些SAT作文素材就是这篇文章的血和肉，要想使我们的文章具有很强的说服力，举例子就是最好的方法。所以说在平时SAT写作的练习中一定要积累更多的例证，希望以上SAT写作素材供大家参考学习。