| mydreamnhung08 | Date: Friday, 2011-10-14, 8:31 PM | Message # 1 |
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Sergeant
Group: Administrators
Messages: 34
Status: Offline
| Present Your Perspective on an Issue
45 minutes
You will have a choice between two Issue topics. Each topic will appear as a brief quotation that states or implies an issue of general interest. Read each topic carefully; then decide on which topic you could write a more effective and well-reasoned response.
You will have 45 minutes to plan and compose a response that presents your perspective on the topic you select. A response on any other topic will receive a zero. You are free to accept, reject, or qualify the claim made in the topic you selected, as long as the ideas you present are clearly relevant to the topic. Support your views with reasons and examples drawn from such areas as your reading, experience, observations, or academic studies.
GRE readers who are college and university faculty will read your response and evaluate its overall quality, based on how well you do the following
* consider the complexities and implications of the issue
* organize, develop, and express your ideas on the issue
* support your ideas with relevant reasons and examples
* control the elements of standard written English.
You may want to take a few minutes to think about the issue and to plan a response before you begin writing. Be sure to develop your ideas fully and organize them coherently, but leave time to reread what you have written and make any revisions that you think are necessary.
Here are some topics:
Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
"Patriotic reverence for the history of a nation often does more to impede than to encourage progress."
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"Government should never censor the artistic works or historical displays that a museum wishes to exhibit."
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"Government should preserve publicly owned wilderness areas in their natural state, even though these areas are often extremely remote and thus accessible to only a few people."
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"In any field of endeavor, it is impossible to make a significant contribution without first being strongly influenced by past achievements within that field."
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"Government funding of the arts threatens the integrity of the arts."
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"Young people should be encouraged to pursue long-term, realistic goals rather than seek immediate fame and recognition."
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"In any field of inquiry, the beginner is more likely than the expert to make important discoveries."
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"Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."
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"Leaders are created primarily by the demands that are placed upon them."
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"College students should be encouraged to pursue subjects that interest them rather than seek programs that promise entry into the job market."
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Most people think that their deeply held values are the result of rational choice, but reason often has little to do with the way people form values."
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"In any academic area or professional field, it is just as important to recognize the limits of our knowledge and understanding as it is to acquire new facts and information."
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"The concept of 'individual responsibility' is a necessary fiction. Although societies must hold individuals accountable for their own actions, people's behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making."
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"Universities should require every student to take a variety of courses outside the student's field of study because acquiring knowledge of various academic disciplines is the best way to become truly educated."
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"People work more productively in teams than individually. Teamwork requires cooperation, which motivates people much more than individual competition does."
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"Although, critics who write about the arts tend to deny the existence of any objective standards for evaluating works of art, they have a responsibility to establish standards by which works of art can be judged."
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"It is unfortunate but true that political decisions and activities affect all aspects of people's lives."
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"Colleges and universities should offer more courses on popular music, film, advertising, and television because contemporary culture has much greater relevance for students than do arts and literature of the past."
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"In any realm of life—whether academic, social, business, or political—the only way to succeed is to take a practical, rather than an idealistic, point of view. Pragmatic behavior guarantees survival, whereas idealistic views tend to be superceded by simpler, more immediate options."
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"The pressure to achieve high grades in school seriously limits the quality of learning. An educational environment without grades would promote more genuine intellectual development."
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"Governments should provide funding for artists so that the arts can flourish and be available to all people."
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"For better or worse, education is a process that involves revising the ideas, beliefs, and values people held in the past."
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"The study of history has value only to the extent that it is relevant to our daily lives."
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"It is primarily through formal education that a culture tries to perpetuate the ideas it favors and discredit the ideas it fears."
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"The true strength of a country is best demonstrated by the willingness of its government to tolerate challenges from it's own citizens."
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"All students should be required to take at least one course in ethics, even if taking the course means a decreased emphasis on academic subjects."
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"Instant communication systems encourage people to form hasty opinions and give quick replies rather than take the time to develop thoughtful, well-reasoned points of view."
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"In many countries it is now possible to turn on the television and view government at work. Watching these proceedings can help people understand the issues that affect their lives. The more kinds of government proceedings—trials, debates, meetings, etc—that are televised, the more society will benefit."
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"The purpose of many advertisements is to make consumers want to buy a product so that they will 'be like' the person in the ad. This practice is effective because it not only sells products but also helps people feel better about themselves."
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"When we concern ourselves with the study of history, we become storytellers. Because we can never know the past directly but must construct it by interpreting evidence, exploring history is more of a creative enterprise than it is an objective pursuit. All historians are storytellers."
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"The worldwide distribution of television programs and advertisements is seriously diminishing the differences among cultures."
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"Some educational systems emphasize the development of students' capacity for reasoning and logical thinking, but students would benefit more from an education that also taught them to explore their own emotions."
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"It is primarily through our identification with social groups that we define ourselves."
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"Humanity has made little real progress over the past century or so. Technological innovations have taken place, but the overall condition of humanity is no better. War, violence, and poverty are still with us. Technology cannot change the condition of humanity."
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"It is through the use of logic and of precise, careful measurement that we become aware of our progress. Without such tools, we have no reference points to indicate how far we have advanced or retreated."
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"With the growth of global networks in such areas as economics and communication, there is no doubt that every aspect of society—including education, politics, the arts, and the sciences—will benefit greatly from international influences."
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"In any field of endeavor—the sciences, the humanities, the social sciences, industry, etc.—it is not the attainment of a goal that matters, but rather the ideas and discoveries that are encountered on the way to the goal."
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"When research priorities are being set for science, education, or any other area, the most important question to consider is: How many people's lives will be improved if the results are successful?"
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"So much is new and complex today that looking back for an understanding of the past provides little guidance for living in the present."
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"At various times in the geological past, many species have become extinct as a result of natural, rather than human, processes. Thus, there is no justification for society to make extraordinary efforts, especially at a great cost in money and jobs, to save endangered species."
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"We owe almost all our knowledge not to people who have agreed, but to people who have disagreed."
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"It is possible to identify a person's politics within a very short time of meeting him or her. Everything about people—their clothes, their friends, the way they talk, what they eat—reflects their political beliefs."
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"Instant foods, instant communication, faster transportation-all of these recent developments are designed to save time. Ironically, though, instead of making more leisure time available, these developments have contributed to a pace of human affairs that is more rushed and more frantic than ever before."
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"The past is no predictor of the future."
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"Society's external rewards are no measure of true success. True success can be measured only in relation to the goals one sets for oneself."
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"Facts are stubborn things. They cannot be altered by our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions."
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"It is often asserted that the purpose of education is to free the mind and the spirit. In reality, however, formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free."
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"Technology is a necessary but not always a positive force in modern life."
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"How children are socialized today determines the destiny of society. Unfortunately, we have not yet learned how to raise children who can help bring about a better society."
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"The arts (painting, music, literature, etc.) reveal the otherwise hidden ideas and impulses of a society."
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"The university community consists of three different worlds—the sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences. Because each world operates on its own assumptions and has its own special habits of thinking, rarely is there meaningful interaction among the sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences."
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"The problems of modern society have led many people to complain: 'We live in terrible times.' Yet, given the choice, no one today would prefer to live in any other time."
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"Students should be encouraged to realize that mental agility and rhetorical skill must be accompanied by sincerity and the true conviction of their own beliefs."
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"While most of the environmental problems we face result from the use of technology, society must depend upon technology to find solutions to these problems."
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"The absence of choice is a circumstance that is very, very rare."
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"What we call progress is a matter of exchanging one problem for another."
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"Only through mistakes can there be discovery or progress."
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"Every new generation needs to redefine 'right' and 'wrong' in its own terms and according to the conditions of its own time."
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"What society has thought to be its greatest social, political, and individual achievements have often resulted in the greatest discontent."
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"Most people recognize the benefits of individuality, but the fact is that personal economic success requires conformity."
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