Knowledge can be a burden rather than a benefit because having knowledge might stifle creativity and knowledge could be abused. A few examples from famous people and my personal experiences demonstrate that knowledge could be more of a burden.
One notable experience would be a business competition that I once participated in. In this competition, we had to come up with a proposal for a new business and execute it. The team with the highest sales revenue wins. The other team has many experts who studied a business course in high school and has all the knowledge about various business principles such as revenue maximization. My team, on the other hand, was made up of business amateurs with no business knowledge but we made up for that with our passion for business. The opposing team was obsessed on whether their business plans met the business principles that we taught during their business course. Our team, though, was more concerned about what sells and relied on our instincts. We were bold and creative in our business model and in the end our business came out on top. The other team floundered as they were too caught up with their business knowledge and were too timid to try things outside of the box. Thus, this experience shows that knowledge could be a burden as it could act as an impediment to trying some things new and creative. Knowledge, especially those from books, could be far from reality and stifle creativity. People could become too caught up with knowledge and forget their own instincts. Thus, knowledge could be more of a burden rather than benefit as it stifles your creativity and instinct.
Another reason why knowledge could be more of a burden is due to the fact that knowledge could be abused. One notable example would be that of Martha Stewart where she has the insider knowledge of an impending loss in her stock value. Hence she sold her stocks and committed a felony for both insider trading and lying to federal investigators to try to conceal her crime. In the end, she was punished for her crime and thrown into jail. As seen, knowledge especially those that you are not supposed to know could lead to serious consequences. Thus, knowledge could be more of a burden as it could be abused and leads bad repercussions.
Research has also shown that more knowledgeable people could be more prone to committing crime. As research from Computer Security Research Institute showed, more than three quarters of all computer-related crime are committed by people with with extensive knowledge of computers and insider knowledge of the companies that they are hacking. This shows how knowledge can be more of a burden as it enables criminals to commit crime.
After careful analysis of my personal experience, research findings on computer crime and example from a famous person like Martha Stewart, one can see that, indeed, knowledge can be more of a burden rather than benefit as knowledge could be abused for bad ends and stifle creativity.
Please help me evaluate and grade. Thank you very much :)
Addition questions about SAT essay in general:
1) Will I be penalized for using British English inadvertently?
2) Does it matter if one paragraph is very long with no spacing since the subject is the same as seen in paragraph 2?
3) In essays, I try to keep it simple and answer the question directly. For example in this case my thesis is that "Knowledge can be a burden rather than a benefit because...". I did not dare to take the risk to write essays like the model one given by College Board with the thesis "..while great knowledge can sometimes be a heavy burden, it always has outweighing benefits" This seems like a more layered thesis and more insightful. Will we be given more marks for attempting a more layered argument or in other words penalized for keeping it simple in order to avoid going off point.