GRE AWS:Issue Task
Analytical Writing Section: Present your Perspective on an issue
This section tests how convincingly you are able to present your views on an issue. You can either agree or disagree completely or agree with some part and disagree with another part.
The ideas should be clearly expressed such that they sustain a focused and coherent discussion.
The essay is scored on a scale of 0-6. You will be allotted 45 minutes to write the essay.Two topics will be presented, out of which you can select any one.
Scoring is based on the following criterion:
Content/Ideas
Ability to present your ideas in a clear and precise manner with relevant examples.
Structure
Ability to present ideas in a well organized manner. The essay should be well structured using transitional words like first, at last, because, hence etc.
Language
Use of appropriate vocabulary, diction and varied sentence structure.
Grammar
Ability to use correct grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Writing an Issue Task...
Step I Decide on the topic.
Out of the two topics presented, choose the topic on which you will be able to more clearly express your views and present cogent examples to support it. You should quickly decide on the topic because the timing of this section begins as soon as the list of topics is presented.
Step II Plan for the response.
Spend adequate time carefully reading and understanding the topic
presented. Decide which position you wish to take. You can either agree
or disagree or agree with some part and disagree with another part.
Think of the persuasive examples to support your views. Note down your ideas in the scratch paper provided to you.
Step III Compose your essay.
The essay should include the following:
Paragraph 1 Introduction: The first paragraph should be very impressive so as to catch the reader's interest. Specify the position you would like to take .
Paragraph 2-4 Cite examples: Give appropriate evidences/examples (generally three) to support your position. Make a separate paragraph for each example. Identify the reasons that someone might use to refute your position and present a good defense against them.
Paragraph 5 Conclusion: Summarize your views and restate thesis statement.
Paragraph 1 Introduction: The first paragraph should be very impressive so as to catch the reader's interest. Specify the position you would like to take .
Paragraph 2-4 Cite examples: Give appropriate evidences/examples (generally three) to support your position. Make a separate paragraph for each example. Identify the reasons that someone might use to refute your position and present a good defense against them.
Paragraph 5 Conclusion: Summarize your views and restate thesis statement.
Step IV Proofread.
Spend 5 minutes reading your essay to check for spelling, grammatical or syntactical errors.
Don'ts
1) Don't write pros and cons of the issue. You are asked to present your viewpoint.
2) Don't write your essay as if you are telling a story.
3) Avoid spelling and grammatical mistakes.
4) Don't use too general or vague examples.The examples should strongly support your
view.
The following example has been taken from
http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/GRE/pdf/awintro.pdf
Issue Topic
“In our time, specialists of all kinds are highly overrated. We need more generalists—people who can provide broad perspectives."
This claim raises several related questions:
What does it mean to be a generalist or a specialist, and what value do they have for society? Does society actually need more generalists, and are specialists, in fact, “highly overrated?”
There are several basic positions you could take on this issue: Yes, society needs more generalists and places too high a value on specialists. No, the opposite is true. Or, it depends on various factors. Or, both groups are important in today’s culture; neither is overvalued.
Essay:
In this era of rapid social and technological change leading to increasing life complexity and psychological displacement, both positive and negative effects among persons in Western society call for a balance in which there are both specialists and generalists.
Specialists are necessary in order to allow society as a whole to properly and usefully assimilate the masses of new information and knowledge that have come out of research and have been widely disseminated through mass global media. As the head of Pharmacology at my university once said (and I
paraphrase):"I can only research what I do because there are so many who have come before me to whom I can turn for basic knowledge. It is only because of each of the narrowly focused individuals at each step that a full and true understanding of the complexities of life can be had. Each person can only hold enough knowledge to add one small rung to the ladder, but together we can climb to the moon." This illustrates the point that our societies level of knowledge and technology is at a stage in which there simply must be specialists in order for our society to take advantage of the information available to us.
Simply put, without specialists, our society would find itself bogged down in the Sargasso sea of information overload. While it was fine for early physicists to learn and understand the few laws and ideas that existed during their times, now, no one individual can possibly digest and assimilate all of the knowledge in any given area.
On the other hand, Over specialization means narrow focii in which people can lose the larger picture.No one can hope to understand the human body by only inspecting one's own toe-nails. What we learn from a narrow focus may be internally logically coherent but may be irrelevant or fallacious within the framework of a broader perspective. Further, if we inspect only our toe-nails, we may conclude that the whole body is hard and white. Useful conclusions and thus perhaps useful inventions must come by sharing among specialists. Simply throwing out various discoveries means we have a pile of useless discoveries, it is only when one can make with them a mosaic that we can see that they may form a picture.
Not only may over-specialization be dangerous in terms of the truth, purity and cohesion of knowledge, but it can also serve to drown moral or universal issues. Generalists and only generalists can see a broad enough picture to realize and introduce to the world the problems of the environment. With specialization, each person focuses on their research and their goals. Thus, industrialization, expansion, and new technologies are driven ahead. Meanwhile no individual can see the holistic view of our global existence in which true advancement may mean stifling individual specialists for the greater good of all.
Finally, over-specialization in a people's daily lives and jobs has meant personal and psychological compartmentalization. People are forced into pigeon holes early in life (at least by university) and must consciously attempt to consume external forms of stimuli and information in order not to be lost in their small and isolated universe. Not only does this make for narrowly focused and generally poorly-educated individuals, but it guarantees a sense of loss of community, often followed by a feeling of psychological displacement and personal dissatisfaction.
Without generalists, society becomes inward-looking and eventually inefficient. Without a society that recognizes the importance of broad-mindedness and foray for sharing generalities, individuals become isolated. Thus, while our form of society necessitates specialists, generalists are equally important. Specialists drive us forward in a series of thrusts while generalists make sure we are still on the jousting
field and know what the stakes are.
You can view entire pool of topics at the following link:
http://www.gre.org/pracmats.html
When you take the test, you will get the topics from this pool though the wording may differ slightly.
http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/GRE/pdf/awintro.pdf
Issue Topic
“In our time, specialists of all kinds are highly overrated. We need more generalists—people who can provide broad perspectives."
This claim raises several related questions:
What does it mean to be a generalist or a specialist, and what value do they have for society? Does society actually need more generalists, and are specialists, in fact, “highly overrated?”
There are several basic positions you could take on this issue: Yes, society needs more generalists and places too high a value on specialists. No, the opposite is true. Or, it depends on various factors. Or, both groups are important in today’s culture; neither is overvalued.
Essay:
In this era of rapid social and technological change leading to increasing life complexity and psychological displacement, both positive and negative effects among persons in Western society call for a balance in which there are both specialists and generalists.
Specialists are necessary in order to allow society as a whole to properly and usefully assimilate the masses of new information and knowledge that have come out of research and have been widely disseminated through mass global media. As the head of Pharmacology at my university once said (and I
paraphrase):"I can only research what I do because there are so many who have come before me to whom I can turn for basic knowledge. It is only because of each of the narrowly focused individuals at each step that a full and true understanding of the complexities of life can be had. Each person can only hold enough knowledge to add one small rung to the ladder, but together we can climb to the moon." This illustrates the point that our societies level of knowledge and technology is at a stage in which there simply must be specialists in order for our society to take advantage of the information available to us.
Simply put, without specialists, our society would find itself bogged down in the Sargasso sea of information overload. While it was fine for early physicists to learn and understand the few laws and ideas that existed during their times, now, no one individual can possibly digest and assimilate all of the knowledge in any given area.
On the other hand, Over specialization means narrow focii in which people can lose the larger picture.No one can hope to understand the human body by only inspecting one's own toe-nails. What we learn from a narrow focus may be internally logically coherent but may be irrelevant or fallacious within the framework of a broader perspective. Further, if we inspect only our toe-nails, we may conclude that the whole body is hard and white. Useful conclusions and thus perhaps useful inventions must come by sharing among specialists. Simply throwing out various discoveries means we have a pile of useless discoveries, it is only when one can make with them a mosaic that we can see that they may form a picture.
Not only may over-specialization be dangerous in terms of the truth, purity and cohesion of knowledge, but it can also serve to drown moral or universal issues. Generalists and only generalists can see a broad enough picture to realize and introduce to the world the problems of the environment. With specialization, each person focuses on their research and their goals. Thus, industrialization, expansion, and new technologies are driven ahead. Meanwhile no individual can see the holistic view of our global existence in which true advancement may mean stifling individual specialists for the greater good of all.
Finally, over-specialization in a people's daily lives and jobs has meant personal and psychological compartmentalization. People are forced into pigeon holes early in life (at least by university) and must consciously attempt to consume external forms of stimuli and information in order not to be lost in their small and isolated universe. Not only does this make for narrowly focused and generally poorly-educated individuals, but it guarantees a sense of loss of community, often followed by a feeling of psychological displacement and personal dissatisfaction.
Without generalists, society becomes inward-looking and eventually inefficient. Without a society that recognizes the importance of broad-mindedness and foray for sharing generalities, individuals become isolated. Thus, while our form of society necessitates specialists, generalists are equally important. Specialists drive us forward in a series of thrusts while generalists make sure we are still on the jousting
field and know what the stakes are.
You can view entire pool of topics at the following link:
http://www.gre.org/pracmats.html
When you take the test, you will get the topics from this pool though the wording may differ slightly.
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