Today, I will take apart a prompt from the Issue task. That is I’ll brainstorm, coming up with pros and cons and specific examples to back up each side.
I’ve taken an example from the ETS website. If you don’t know already, their offers hundreds of sample essay prompts. Now if you’re not convinced and think, “Hey, I already have a book with sample essay prompts,” then consider this: test day the prompt you get will be one of the prompts on this site. It may very well be the following prompt:
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.
First off, make sure you not only read the issue, but that you read the directions. You must establish a position, and tell us your rationale for choosing this position. Your position should fall somewhere along the spectrum of disagree/agree. You probably don’t want to be too neutral (defending a default position is never that compelling), nor do you want to be too extreme: Unless you study the cities of a major society you will be forever doomed in trying to understand that society.
The first step is come up with positions for and against the prompt. Then you will want to choose the side you feel you have the best reasoning for, keeping in mind that you should, “consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true…”
For
- All great civilizations have had a flourishing city. The government/king/queen have been here. To understand most of its people, the way in which it is ruled, we must understand the city.
- ‘Most important characteristics’ shows that life outside of a city can still help illuminate the society, but not as much as city life can.
- Learning centers/colleges/universities are typically in a city. Understanding the intellectual output is key to understanding a society.
- In post-agrarian societies, most jobs are contained within cities. That is commerce is conducted in the cities.
Against
- Many societies have been agricultural. That societies customs, rituals can only be understood in the context of a rural backdrop.
- Even a modern society depends on agriculture to sustain it. Surely, to understand the important characteristics of a society, we need to understand the people who live in rural areas.
- ‘Major cities’ is a stretch. Even smaller cities can help us understand a society, especially if the culture/values tend to be different in the smaller cities/more rural areas.
For your actual essay, your For/Against should not be so long. Find some shorthand way of expressing your thoughts (I wrote everything out because my shorthand wouldn’t look very good in a blog post J).
Perhaps you’ve come up with a different list of For/Against. Regardless, the next step is to figure out where you fall on the Agree/Disagree spectrum. That is what position, based on your brainstorming, are you taking.
I’ll choose For, stating that my position was predicated on modern societies, most of which have a majority of their population living in major cities. I’ll concede at some point in the essay that even smaller cities can offer insight into a society.
To effectively support and develop these points, I would want to think of relevant examples. For the last point, I would offer up the United States. The culture between large cities and small cities can be very different. There is the Red State vs. Blue State dichotomy that can also pertain to small cities vs. large cities. To understand the religious political divide in the U.S. we would need to also study life in small cities and rural areas. This would be my concession point, which basically shows that my position is not 100% for the prompt, but is more balanced and nuanced.
Hi Chris,
My problem stems from getting the pros and cons. i’m usually stuck there
. How can i improve this aspect of my writing?.
Thanks.
Hi, I was wondering how we should go about tackling the issues with prompts that state a Claim and Reason. For e.g.
Claim: Nations should suspend government funding for the arts when significant numbers of their citizens are hungry or unemployed.
Reason: It is inappropriate—and, perhaps, even cruel—to use public resources to fund the arts when people’s basic needs are not being met.
Do we have to spend our whole essay dissecting the reason, arguing for and against the cruelty of using funds to support the arts when people are starving, or can we address the claim more generally, giving other reasons such as government funding for the arts is an insignificant portion of overall funding for the arts? I hope it is the latter, for it does not seem like an easy task to come up with many argument for only one reason.
Thanks!
Hi Benjamin,
I don’t think ETS really has an official stance on how the best approach the question. As long as you combine an analysis of the claim and the reason, you should be fine. Meaning, focus on the claim, if you feel it is easier to do so, but do not ignore the reason. Likewise, do not focus only on the reasoning, attacking it the same way you would a typical issue question, without addressing the claim on which it is based.
Hope that made sense
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My strategy is similar to what is listed here. I took about 7 minutes to brainstorm and draw up a pro and cons column. Also, I had examples for both positions and at the end of brain storming, I decided which side of the essay prompt I was going to adopt. Then after clearly elucidating my arguments for my adopted position, I also considered the opposing view, so as to give the essay a balanced analysis.
I received a 4.5/6 on the AWA.
Hi Nikhil,
Without actually seeing your essay it is hard to determine why you received a 4.5 and not a ’5′ or higher. The truth is structure is only one ingredient to your essay. ETS will also look to see how cogent your examples are, how varied your sentence structure, and how sophisticated your prose is. I can confidently say that if you followed the structure above that doing so should not have detracted from your score.
My best guess is cogency of examples. Some of my students have off days, and though everything else is tidy about their essays, their examples fail to cohere and they get a point or so off.
Hope that helps shed some insight
.
Thanks Chris, I began practice for AWA two days back. I hope my writings improves to earn at least a 4.5 on my test date (Early September). Also, Do we have a magoosh team that can help score practice AWA essay. At no cost o!
Thanks
Hi Oluwunmi,
Unfortunately, we don’t offer an essay review service! If you have any general questions about approaches to writing or structuring essays, feel free to let us know through the Help tab in Magoosh and we’d be happy to help.
hello
I’m going to retake the gre and am wondering how much a score higher on the essays like from 4 to 5 will affect my quantitative grade as well. I just need five grades higher on the quantitative and am wondering how many points I can get by studying for and raising my essay as well? I mean is it worth the time or should I stick to the maths, I don’t really have much time left.
Hi Esra,
Your essay score is totally unrelated to your quant score. So in order to raise you quant score you will have to improve on the math. I’d say don’t give up so easily. A 5-point increase in math is attainable
.
oh I wish I’d known that a bit earlier. this just made me realize- so if I need a quantitative grade of 149 to apply for my masters, then I can even totally skip the verbal and essay sections to the maths?? (I mean ım not sure ıll actually do this, but then it means it won’t affect my maths at all?)
and one last question- Im not sure if it may be silly but I had a 145 in my last exam and need a 149, about how many more questions will I have to do right this time?.. I wish the gre scores were given in more detail (to me and not the school or wherever).
thanks a lot!
Hi Esra,
Yes, I know the score bit is confusing. I’m guessing a 3+ correct answers should get you there.
As for skipping the AWA, you can definitely do so without in any way affecting your verbal score.
Good luck!
Hey Chris, I’ve signed on to Magoosh for a year and had written GRE earlier this year (303 awa 2). i intend to take GRE once again and the AWA scares me. Not that I cant read nor right, I just have this problem starting and developing the thoughts to my satisfaction. Is there a section for AWA on magoosh ?
I had a different problem. My verbal score was 146 and AWA 4.0. However, I am seeing mostly people with having far better verbal score than mine but their AWA score less than 4.0. Still perplexed with my predicament of this type.
How did you go about studying for the verbal? I’d love to help you dramatically improve upon your score
.
Hi Oluwunmi,
Yes, we do have a special section for the AWA. Hopefully, it will help get the thoughts flowing. In the meantime, I recommend using the prompts from the ets bank to practice coming up with pros and cons.
http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/analytical_writing/issue/pool
Good luck!
Yes, we have an AWA section on Magoosh
. Indeed it talks about a few strategies to help generate thoughts. Let me know if you find it helpful 
.
You mentioned that one should avoid being too neutral in an issue essay, and yet in the example topic, you concede with the point that small cities can offer insight into a society. At what point is an essay deemed “too neutral?” I often find myself having appealing pro and con examples for my essays, yet too few of substantial examples to firmly decide on what side of the issue I should write on.
Also, do you have any tips for generating examples on the fly? I often find myself stuck trying to generate insightful examples and ultimately result to insipid “personal experience” ones.
Thanks!
Hi Lizzy,
Good question! I think there is an important difference between a concession point and a neutral thesis. A concession point shows that you are able to consider the other side of the issue and show that, in some cases or situations, your point does not hold true.
Being neutral, on the other hand, would involve not taking a side at all. Consider the following thesis: Studying cities can sometimes yield important characteristics of a society.
That’s a very wishy-washy argument, one that really doesn’t amount to much of a stance.
Hope that clears things up
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Thanks! Very helpful points.
Could you please give main points(For and Against) for a few more difficult issue topics.
Hi Shubham,
I will work to do so in the near future. Glad you are enjoying the posts
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