SAT Practice Essay

This is a practice essay for the SAT's.

The other day I was looking through a copy of the Seventeen magazine. More than half of it was filled with advertisements for clothes and make-up and what was currently "hot". Many teenagers, or people, read this magazine and they actually listen to what it tells you. The media does affect what is important to people and their lives. The people who read these magazines see that the majority of the pages hold ads of jewelry and clothes. They see that since the magazine holds such importance on these subjects then they should too.
In the news, a couple of years ago they had multiple stories of shark attacks and high statistics for that year. People started to believe that particular year was extremely high in shark attacks and they should be cautious in deciding whether to visit the beaches of not. But, in reality, that year had about the same amount of shark attacks as the past years. The news stations and media just wanted a story to interest people, and it worked.
People want to be up-to-date with the world around them. They want to know what's going on. They keep in touch with what's happening through the media. They believe what the newspapers and magazines and movies tell them, because that's one of the easiest ways to obtain information.
But, of course, it really is up to you if you want to allow the media to affect your life and ways of thinking, or so you think. You can fall into media's trap or decide to go against it, either way it will somehow have an affect on you. It will still decide what is important in your life whether you believe them or not. If what you believe and what you don't believe is based on what the media portrays to you then it will always have an affect on you. Everything will.