First issue, please help

[hollysee]

I have 2 weeks until my GRE, and this is my first issue. I am applying for Economics which I assume essay doesn't have to be at 5/6. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

"It is possible to pass laws that control or place limits on people's behavior, but legislation cannot reform human nature. Laws cannot change what is in people's hearts and minds."


Laws are very important in the development of human society and culture. Laws play very significant role in shaping human culture and society. They have always existed throughout human history, from time to time, geography to geography, and culture to culture. The first well known written code of laws is the Hammurabi’s Code of Laws. However, we can still be certain that laws existed before Hammurabi. Since without laws, human society would fall back to an anarchy society, and society will not progress without the definite prevention of unwanted behaviors. What are laws and their functions? Laws are a system of rules that dictate what is permitted and what is not within a society, bring peace and justice by the employment of punishments, usually physical. They, however, do not serve the purpose and function of enlighten and educate people in a society.

As mentioned above, laws serve of the purpose of bringing peace and justice in a society by using physical punishments. Thus, they may be effective in preventing unwanted behaviors as defined by society and lawmakers, but the effectiveness of laws in changing hearts and minds is unheard of, since the mechanism is based on negative reinforcement. This might provide deterrence for criminal offenders, based on the effectiveness of execution and magnitude of the punishment, but this is only physical. No mental enlightenment is achieved by such action. A society may define stealing as illegal, and to punish such act by imprisonment; however, it may not be cleared to people as to why this act is wrong, if the society never educate and pass on the moral standards of a society to its people. Since people don’t know it is wrong to steal, when the law enforcement is strict, such act might be repeated.

Education, on the other hand, can purify and teach people what is right, proper and moral. Only by moral trainings will we enforce the concept of right and wrong fundamentally. With such training, a person is taught what are the right things do such as living a clean, healthy and prosper life. This training also will also teach people to stay away from wicked, unjustified and deprived behavior. This training differs from laws’ function because this is intended to educate and uses positive reinforcements while the laws provide negative reinforcement by using punishments to prevent unwanted behaviors. Thus, the society teaches its people why stealing is wrong perhaps by branding it with stigma and disgrace so people will avoid such bad behavior because they know it is wrong.

While we should not underestimate the role of laws within a society in brining justice and providing peace, we should also understand clearly what the capabilities of laws are. For a society to extirpate unwanted behavior, moral training should be the first line of defense, as its effect is deeply rooted. Laws’ effects, on the other hand, are usually cursory, and not intended to change people’s hearts and minds.

[cristofer]

I think the third paragraph is getting off topic, and you should really just address whether laws affect people's hearts, since that is what the question asks. you should also include some concrete evidence for why you think laws cannot change what is in people's hearts and minds. For example, the fact that crime still exists, or the fact that many people let out of prison continue to commit crimes.

You have to be careful about repeating yourself too much, and relying on a lot of vague generalities. high scoring AWA essays really get into the meat of the question.

btw, your writing skills are very good, you use good language, etc. i would just work on refocusing on the main idea of the prompt. good luck!

[hollysee]

Thanks a lot for the feedback! It seems I still have a lot to work on. I am having difficulties writing 400-700 words, hence I tend to repeat a lot...

Yes the third paragraph is actually off topic...and I will also work on including concrete examples.

Thanks!!!

[Gravy924]

Good Job!

I think you should make your position on the issue more explicit in the opening paragraph. While it may seem kind of clumsy, rather than use enlighten and educate (as synonomous to human nature, hearts minds etc ?) I would say "I agree with the speakers statement that while laws can restrain behavior they cannot change what is in the hearts and minds of individuals"

I imagine that GRE graders are going to be going through a ton of these and going fast. If you can make it easier on them to find what side you are arguing it will help you out.

Also, if you get stuck on test day and cannot think of what to write, and get in a situation where you need to use your 3rd paragrah even though you know its off topic, just do what you need to do to bring it in to the argument.

You could say something like "Laws cannot change what is in hearts and minds because only education can do that" It is not a great argument, but it in some way justifies the appearance of an argument based on education changing human nature.

Good luck!
.