GRE – Issue Writing No.01-10

• To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take.

In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.

You should write more than 300 words.

• Educational institutions have a responsibility to dissuade students from pursuing fields of study in which they are unlikely to succeed.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim.

In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.

You should write more than 300 words.

• Scandals are useful because they focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim.

In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.

You should write more than 300 words.

• Claim: No act is done purely for the benefit of others.
• Reason: All actions — even those that seem to be done for other people — are based on self-interest.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim and the reason on which that claim is based.

You should write more than 300 words.

• Some people believe that the most important qualities of an effective teacher are understanding and empathy. Others believe that it is more important for teachers to be rigorous and demanding in their expectations for students.

Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.

You should write more than 300 words.

• Claim: While boredom is often expressed with a sense of self-satisfaction, it should really be a source of embarrassment.
• Reason: Boredom arises from a lack of imagination and self-motivation.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim and the reason on which that claim is based.

You should write more than 300 words.

• We learn our most valuable lessons in life from struggling with our limitations rather than from enjoying our successes.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.

You should write more than 300 words.

• The best way to solve environmental problems caused by consumer-generated waste is for towns and cities to impose strict limits on the amount of trash they will accept from each household.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.

You should write more than 300 words.

• Some people claim that the goal of politics should be the pursuit of an ideal. Others argue that the goal should be finding common ground and reaching reasonable consensus.

Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.

You should write more than 300 words.

• In any field — business, politics, education, government — those in power should be required to step down after five years.

Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider the possible consequences of implementing the policy and explain how these consequences shape your position.

You should write more than 300 words.

In today’s Contemporary and fast-paced world, each country’s major cities play a very important role in deciding the economic, social as well as political status of a country. The major cities reflect upon the overall development and provide a bird’s view of that country. However, this is an unfair generalization made by the author that looking into the major cities will give us all the important characteristics of a society. Let’s further look into this.

For decades, a country has been divided into two fragments. Firstly, the major cities where Urbanization and development have taken at a faster pace. Secondly, the towns and rural areas of the country provide a closer look into the cultural heritage.
The major cities have helped in establishing international standards and maintaining foreign relations. Every major city of any country will always have the best amenities and facilities be it New Delhi in India, Paris in France, or Beijing in China.

However, these cities may provide some insight into the culture and traditions of that country, their socioeconomic status, and the way their society functions but will not give a holistic picture. Due to Commercialization and the growing needs of each city to compete with each other in the race of being the best, they somewhat are not capable of capturing the true essence of their society and the bucolic beauty of that nation.

For instance, to know about the cultural and traditional background of India, looking into their major cities will only provide an overview. Metropolitan cities like Delhi, Bangalore, etc have very little to offer in terms of India’s history of culture and traditions. To truly understand their society and background, it is necessary to visit the countryside or further explore some other cities to learn about their culture, heritage, and past.

Another popular example is Paris in France. Paris is no doubt the fashion hub of the country and has some widely popular tourist attractions but looking alone into Paris would not give enough information about entire France like their major contribution in Cheese production, wine, and vineyards, perfumes, etc. For that, it is necessary to look into the small villages and towns and not just the major cities.

Major cities will always provide information and various important characteristics of a society. However, one can truly know about a country’s culture and society by studying the smaller cities and towns along with the major cities for more accurate knowledge.

Education is the most important factor behind the success and overall development of a person. Many countries have a high illiteracy rate making them incompetent in full development. Educational institutes are the driving force behind providing quality education and also honing the various skills of an individual. In a country like India where there are a number of educational institutes with a vast variety of professional courses, the educational industry has become one of the major industries.

I believe that educational institutes have a major responsibility for the overall success and development of a student in a particular field. They are responsible to provide quality education to nurture the growth of the student and make them outstanding professionals in their field of choice. They have the resources and the knowledge to help the student in the correct path of success and achievement. But I disagree with the argument that educational institutes have a responsibility to dissuade students from pursuing a field of study in which they are unlikely to succeed.

No matter how learned or knowledgeable a person is they do not have a right to judge anyone. They may be poor critiques in finding the true potential of an individual. Take the instance of Michael Jordan. He was kicked out of his high school basketball team because his sports coach thought he is a poor performer but later on, he became to be known as the brightest basketball player in the country. It may so happen that a person recognizes their potential later in the stage of life and hence if demotivated in the crucial years of college, they may grow to develop low self-esteem.

The meaning of success is very vast and different from person to person. For some success may mean being rich and monetarily sound, for some it may mean reaching the heights of their creative potential, and for some success may mean being socially sound and understanding one’s own potential. In India, for example, due to the high poverty rate, there are many students who are told from a young age that they are to be the bread earners for the family. This burden to achieve financial stability for the family causes many to take up professional courses like engineering and MBBS without much interest so as to be placed good and help to support their family. They may not be brilliant in their field or the brightest mind in their college class but their hunger for money may make them good engineers/ doctors, so to dissuade them from entering a professional life in this field may be a judgmental decision on the part of the educational institute.

If a student is dissuaded they may never make an effort to ever try doing something they are not good at and this will lead to a deep impact on their all-round development. The fear of being discouraged is such that the student may stop even applying their brains to a problem to solve on their own. It is said that a person only learns from their mistakes. No successful human being would have reached that peak of success without committing a mistake, accepting it, learning from it, and making it right the next time. Thus till the time, a student is not given an opportunity to explore their potentials they may never be able t achieve success and happiness.

Thus educational institutes should not dissuade a student from continuing in the field in which they are likely to not succeed but provide various opportunities and platforms of growth so that they realize their potential themselves and learn to become better individuals and citizens.

In a democratic society, there are several ways to reveal problems to the public and evoke the following reforms of the problems. Therefore, I do believe there are more much better ways to deal with public issues than using scandals, which normally cause more harm than benefit. However, I will discuss further and illustrate to what extent, scandals may play a relatively positive role.

First, the qualities of scandals matter, which means the essentiality and reality of information revealed from the scandals do affect the function of scandals. For example, if a true fact about one scandal relating to a certain governor’s bribe during the election period is released, then the function of this scandal is positive since it made the illegal behaviors known and help the public to make a better judgment of the candidate. On the other hand, if the scandal about the same bribe is untrue, then harm to the governor can be created since he/she will suffer from the negative image. Hence, scandals have two-sides effects, and the positive side only happens when the scandal speaks of the truth.

Second, scandals tend to bring lots of attention because of the way it presents usually including dramas that are eye-catching. Thus, scandals may elicit the following investigations. For instance, US President Donald Trump was accused of his illegal collaboration with the Russian government to win the presidential election. Further investigations were conducted and also led to a vote to suspend Donald Trump’s presidential position. Though the result is that Donald Trump is not guilty, numerous resources have already been put into the investigation as well as the vote arrangement, which may be a waste of public resources. Therefore, it is beneficial that the scandals do lead public attention to certain critical problems, but it may also create a waste of public resources if the scandal is untrue.

In conclusion, I argue that the positive effects, leading public attention to critical problems, which scandals bring is only valid when the scandals are true and authentic. Otherwise, the way scandals present tends to create harm and waste of public resources. Hence, I do believe there are other ways in democratic society playing a better role in waking people’s attention to important issues, such as open discussion and regular votes to replace inappropriate governors.

Some may argue that acts are done for the benefit of others. Alternatively, others say acts are done based on self-interest. I mostly agree with the latter claim and the reason given.

Firstly, acts of monetary donation can be driven by personal desires. Although these actions can be framed as a way of helping others, there are actually ulterior motives at play. Take, for example, the donation given by Jeff Besos, the CEO of Amazon, to climate preservation. The CEO was pressured to donate to the initiative to keep employees and the public happy. To the uninformed, his donation can be seen as an act of benevolence to society. However, those knowledgeable can see that the donation was a means to placate the unruly public and maintaining a positive brand image. Additionally, those who donate money or items to charities can get a reduction in their taxes. Donators not only benefit others but also themselves.

In the same way, acts of service are fueled by self-interest. College students who want to stand out to recruiters or admission directors will participate in as many activities as they can. Community service is one area that can make an applicant stand out. As a result, students will involve themselves with hospice, habitat for humanity, and other organizations whether they are interested or not. Through their actions, they bring joy to others, but also make themselves competitive for their future careers. Those who volunteer at a hospital may see the opportunity as a means to learn more about medicine.

However, I do not agree fully with the extent of the reason given for the claim. Not all actions stem from self-interest. There are those who partake in court-ordered community service. In this instance, they are not motivated by self-interest and instead are carrying out their punishment. Another example is the current black lives matters movement. People who not a part of the African American community are standing in support to help attain justice for others. In this scenario, the supporters are involved in the betterment of humankind.

In summation, I mostly agree with the claim that no act is purely done for benefit of others and is motivated by self-interest. There are some cases, nonetheless, where actions are taken because there are no other options or because of a cause greater than oneself.

Teachers play a very phenomenal role in the present competitive academic system. And being impactful positively is a two-edge sword kind of an approach. Some people argue that these education instructors should be accommodating towards the students. Whereas in the other’s opinion, being tough and the directive is the only way to be an effective educator. In my conviction, a teacher should be flexible by being able to understand the student’s needs and come up with a custom approach suitable to the student’s needs.

Not all the students are good at all the subjects. Some people are good at Maths and some may be comfortable with science. One good example, Gurukul schools. A teacher should gain the trust of the students before directing them towards his/her educational goals. Lecturers should work with learners and identify the areas where the learner is having trouble with and should be able to offer an alternate learning approach that can be absorbed by the learner. This will ensure avoid lagging behind.

On the other hand, opponents argue that students should be given tougher goals and lecturers should make them work hard towards reaching their academic targets. To exemplify, the Day-scholars education system introduced in INDIA in the year 2000 is one of the revolutionary ways of teaching. In this system, students are expected to study longer hours in order to be able to complete the year long curriculum within half of its time. As a result, students have extra time to go over the syllabus multiple times to score high marks and the results are extraordinary. However, this is not the right way of dealing with students as yet times, it could put extreme pressure on students and could be detrimental to the psychological health of the learner.

In conclusion, learning should be fun. And lecturers and professors should be more understanding towards the students rather than being blunt in directing them towards achieving high scores in academics. If education instructors are not balanced, it may result in negative learning results.

There can be nothing more depressing than being in an idyllic state without knowing what to do. The human-animal loves emotions. Emotions play an integral part of our everyday life to the extent that human beings can communicate using emotions without any need for words. I partially agree with the claim that boredom arises from a lack of imagination and self-motivation. But, the author goes too far in saying that boredom should be a source of embarrassment.

At first blush, the argument seems compelling. We tend to be occupied in our daily life when we have a routine job to complete. We become busy when there are too many things on our plate. When we finish all the work that we intend to do, we are left in a state of peace. While some take advantage of this excess time to do other productive activities, others remain idle due to a sense of boredom and self-satisfaction of the work assigned to them. Instead, if they spend their leisure time in activities like reading novels, watching movies, or even spending time in social activities, they would not get bored and indeed do something effective. Thus, being in a state of boredom may be due to the complacent attitude of the individuals who lack imagination and motivation to spend their extra time in useful activities.

Beyond this concession, however, I do not agree with the claim that boredom can be attributed to the lack of imagination and self-motivation. Consider a student in class who is very creative and strives to excel in academics. He is diligent and is against mere rote learning of facts and ideas. The curriculum of his school might test the capability of students through exams that primarily assess the students’ memory power. In such a setting, even though the student works hard and possesses creative thinking skills, he might get depressed and bored of the curriculum that is imposed on him. Thus, irrespective of being motivated and imaginative, there can be situations where boredom arises merely out of the unfavorable environment around the person.

We have highly talented artists, film actors, writers, and poets who produce brilliant masterpieces to the world. There have been several instances where they get bored of their career, switch fields to politics, or even commit suicide. When even these excellent artists are inevitable from the clutches of boredom, it high impugns the idea that boredom arises from a lack of perseverance and creativity. Further, the author does not provide a convincing case to attribute boredom to a source of embarrassment. If these artists and actors felt embarrassed due to their bored and idyllic periods in their careers, they would not have rejuvenated and turned successful in the later years of their careers.

In summation, the claim that boredom is a source of embarrassment and arises due to lack of assiduity and creativity is half-baked. At the same time, no one should fall into the valley of boredom for a long time, they should revive back to their normalcy and carry out productive tasks or plan alternative hobby activities to subdue their boredom.

What makes a winner stand apart in every sphere of life is the simple fact that the number of times the winner failed supersedes the number of trials of someone who lost. To understand the context of the above statement, we must first elaborate on the idea of “limitations”. The reason most people even dread to try for a difficult feat is their fear of not being good enough. It wouldn’t be incorrect to say that our limitations are mostly self-imposed. Only the fears that we dodge and are not willing to face, ripe to become limitations. Nobody is born with it. As Paulo Coelho rightly said, “You only know yourself when you go beyond limits”.

Karoly Takacs, from the Hungarian Army, was the greatest shooter the world has ever witnessed. Right before the 1940 Olympics, when the whole world was looking up to him, a hand grenade exploded in his right hand and he was deemed unfit for the competition. In a situation like this, it is human to get bogged down by such an unfortunate incident. But what Takacs did was simply unthinkable. He started practicing with his left hand and the rest is all history.

The magic quotient that works while a person is struggling with his limitations is the will to rise above all circumstances. One never realizes his true potential unless he has walked the pathway through hell. As rightly pointed out, smooth seas never make good divers. To become a splendid diver, one has to understand the adverse currents and face them like they never existed.

As very conveniently said, “You are the outcome of your failed relationships and horrible bosses”. While enjoying the fruits of success, people often become ignorant of the valuable lessons of life. Most importantly, while you are aware of your limitations, you learn to work with the resources you have and make peace with it. As in Takacs’s case, while he was depressed after the horrible incident of losing a hand, it took time but finally, the acceptance came that the truth is never going to change and the sooner he accepted it, the more time he had for the next Olympic.

Lance Armstrong, the world champion in Cycling and a cancer survivor writes in his book “Cancer is the best thing that has happened to me”. As shocked as the readers are at first glance of it, his journey carries the weight of this statement. It was his survival instinct during the gruesome Chemotherapy that taught him perseverance. Sometimes, more than talent, it is perseverance that takes you to places. Lance’s story is one of the best examples of how far a person can go in pursuit of his dreams and how to make the most of his limitations. Rather than using your shortcomings as an excuse, dare to make them your biggest strength. Success will eventually follow. Let not success be your motivation. Rather, make the journey inspiring. Limitations are indeed what you make of them.

Some towns and cities are limiting the amount of trash they will accept from each household because they think it is the best way to solve environmental problems related to consumer-generated waste. Although I am not against imposing strict limits, I would point out that without certain conditions being met, this move will not solve the problem.

All households have a different number of people. A uniform limit imposed on every household will force the larger households to classify themselves as more than one household with a smaller number of people. This will not lead to a reduction in consumer-generated waste, as the policy presumes. It might even increase the waste generated due to the redundancy of waste materials from the now smaller households. Furthermore, if the limit imposed is unfair and insufficient for households, these households may superficially obey the order while dumping the excess waste in public places, compounding the problem even more. If the goal of the policy is to reduce waste generations, it should allow for different limits for different household sizes.

Additionally, the administration will need to ensure that there is strict enforcement of the policy such that the larger households do not, in exchange for some money, hand over some part of their waste to the smaller households who generated lesser amounts of waste than the imposed limit. This would nullify the impact of the policy while creating an unregulated market. To ensure the success of this policy, and innovative enforcement body will be needed to be set up.

While the goal is to reduce consumer-generated waste, the focus of the policy is on reducing waste collection which happens after the waste has already been generated. So, even if a household does not comply with the policy and exceeds the mandated limit, the environmental problems associated with the already generated waste is not solve. Actually, it is worsened because lack of proper collection and disposal will cause additional environmental problems. Hence, the purpose of the policy is defeated.

A better policy would focus on reducing waste generation itself. A component of this policy will be educating people about the harmful environmental impacts of consumer waste. The policy should also focus on creating incentives for proper segregation and, if possible, recycling of the biodegradable waste into useful products. This will reduce the amount of waste in need of disposal while creating earning opportunities.

In the end, I am not suggesting that imposing limits on the amount of waste that the city or town collects from each house is not helpful. In fact, some households already produce less waste than the limit imposed. However, a uniform limit on every household will create problems of enforcement, unsafe disposal, and perverse economic incentives. If, however, the policy is made more flexible and include in combination with other steps enlisted above, it would be more effective to solve environmental problems caused by consumer-generated waste in towns and cities.

Human history is filled with various political views. Great thinkers such as Plato or Karl Marx had their ideal of how politics should work and firmly believed human civilization should move towards their ideal. However, these ideal may be contradicted to each other, results in fighting between parties holding different views. Moreover, an urgent current issue like poverty, sanitation, starvation, are also usually not compatible with those ideals and requires compromise from all groups involved. I believe the pursuit of an ideal is always the motivation to the prosperity of the human race while reaching common ground and compromises are often the pragmatic method to achieve this goal.

In history, great philosophers and politicians advocated various theories on how human society and government should evolve and develop. Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, believed that the ideal kingdom should lead by a philosopher king. Karl Marx, the eminent thinker in the 20th century, claimed that communism is the goal human society should aim for and capitalism was built on exploiting the working class. Modern countries also adopted various forms of democracy, which certainly have their merits and shortcomings. In a certain period in history, these theories served as guidance leading progressive advancement of our civilization. Furthermore, ordinary people advocate their political ideals such as feminism, eradicating discrimination towards sexual orientation, race, and age. Either theory of the political system or proposition from a group of people may represent an ideal worth striving for.

When these theories or opinions are compatible, politicians would easily work together aiming for the common goal. Nonetheless, there are cases where they are drastically contradicted. We have seen the cold war between Communism and Capitalism in the past century. As the development of human civilization, new political views often tried to supplant old political views, resulting in the war in extreme cases. These wars brought enormous pain to the people involved. In these cases, reaching a common ground will largely diminish the disaster brought on these countries.

Even we temporally forget the fighting between different political ideals, there are tensions within one government under the same political system. Providing more jobs to industrial workers might be contradicted to the need of environmentalists. Offering unisex toilets for the right of transgender people worries parents since attackers might exploiting these policies. In these situations, insisting on any form of the ideal would not be the most rational decision. Taking a small step at each time might not be the most effective way to meet our expectations on a new policy. However, these might be the cost we must take to translate ideally to realization. Discussion and compromise would be the most reasonable method a government can undertake.

Overall, the pursuit of an ideal will always be the motivation of the politicians in any government. However, to achieve this ideal, we must communicate different ideas and reach common ground, even though adopting these methods will slow the progress of development. Insisting on one specific ideal would do harm to all parties involved in the issue.

The claim here apprises that those in power; in business, politics, education, government, or any other field; should step down after a period of five years. The best reason put forth describes that the surest path to success for any organization or enterprise is revitalization through new leadership.

Before taking a stand and laying out my reasons, I would like to discuss something. We all know what Binary Logic is. It is simply a set of rules for dealing with various propositions by denoting them either True, that is, 1 or False, that is, 0.

Now, has anyone ever heard of Fuzzy Logic? Know what it entails? It also constitutes a set of rules for dealing with propositions, just like Binary Logic, but it does not denote them with either True or False. Instead, it denotes any real number between 0 and 1, both inclusive. This means that a particular proposition can either be True or False or something in between.

The claim here demands such a response as it is too broad to be betokened as either Right or Wrong. But even so, I am against this notion. Most of them in a position of power, are susceptible to get power-hungry after some time. Long tenures will most probably cause them to become increasingly autocratic in handling their affairs. Also if the power bestowed upon them, in turn, grants them reduced accountability or even causes reduced fear of it, then it might lead to them misusing their authority while in power. Changing them or forcing them to step down is a great way to circumvent this obstacle and keeping the circle going on.

Also, the stepping up of new leaders into the spotlight will eventually bring some fresh ideas and solutions to long-standing problems or disputes.

However, these can be overcome with an honest practice of effective accountability and an improvised system of audits. Also, new ideas or solutions; in short revitalization; can be achieved through the appointment of new consultants, or managers, etc.

And thus we move on to my reasoning for why this claim is not overly justified. As mentioned above, most of the problems that persist in the case of unchanging personas of power can be resolved through well-thought-out methods. Meanwhile, bringing in new characters to power might, unfortunately, result in the irreversible loss of user experience that the predecessor may have learned in his/her tenure. This person may be at the height of their performance and excellence near the end of the tenure and their removal will result in the loss of valuable experience and a valuable leader.

In support of my argument, I would like to present a few examples. If Bill Gates had been forced out of power after five years, Microsoft would not have been as successful as it is now. Comparing the performances of Apple before and after the removal of Steve Jobs from the company and after re-appointment delineates that Mr. Jobs was, in fact, pivotal to the success of Apple. If Elon Musk had been removed from his seat of power after he created Tesla and SpaceX, would these companies have grown as they are growing (exponentially, according to sources) now?

Finally, I would like to conclude this piece by bringing forth another argument; food for thought if you may. After the removal of a person in power, is it completely conclusive that the new leader won’t be lacking the necessary experience to run an organization (which can lead to hampering the progress of the said organization) even if he/she has been trained and is more than qualified?