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People who make decisions based on emotion and justify those decisions with logic afterwards are poor decision makers.

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.

 

 

Humanity is known for the ability to have feelings, expressing emotions to each other, making people feel alive. Life, however, is complicated. There are situations that require people to make difficult decisions and sometimes emotions could interfere. People who make decisions under the influence of emotions rather than logic are bad decision makers.

 

 

Emotions are a subjective experience in that they are based on feeling and are difficult to measure. Logic, on the other hand, is correlated with objectivity and can be measured. The scientific method is all based on logical reasoning and objective measures. A scientist derives a hypothesis, from which he/she conducts an experiment to answer this question. Using statistical measures, the scientist can conclude with a certain amount of confidence if his/her hypothesis is correct or incorrect. Others then have an idea whether or not they would agree with the scientist's conclusions. Let's pretend, for example, that the scientist performed experiments with emotions and subjectivity, lacking any sort of valid measures or statistics. The scientist could feel indolent and disregard using statistics to back up his/her claim, making others not believe him/her. Or, the scientist wouldn't have a structured approach to the experiment, feeling the need to achieve results fast and sloppily rather than slow and meticulous. This could lead to inaccurate results as a result of making poor decisions throughout the experiments. If the scientist were to remain objective and conduct the experiments with logic, there would be a more hopeful outcome of a proper experiment.

 

 

Making decisions based on logic are even more important when others are relying on the decision maker. One of the most influential people of the world, the president of the United States, must operate with logic at all possible costs as his actions could affect the entire world. The job requires a high level of stress and a low level of sleep. These two factors can ferociously impact emotions. The president is trained, or at least innately able, to operate with making decisions based on logic rather than emotions, to not let these two job requirements affect his ability to think lucidly. Currently, President Obama must be extremely angry at ISIS in Iraq, for their inimical decisions on harming hundreds of innocent civilians. Based on these emotions, he must feel compelled rage war in Iraq, guns blazing and put an end to this atrocity. However, there's a high chance that could harm more innocents and U.S. soldiers in the process. He must think logically to minimize the risks. This logical reasoning is what makes him a good decision maker. If he were to operate primarily on emotions, it would be poor judgement on his end and would harm his country.

 

 

This all being said, emotions are exist for a reason. Emotions drive behavior such as falling in love, choosing an appropriate career path, making lifelong friendships. When making decisions, however, they can cloud judgments and and lead to poor decisions. It's important to keep emotions in check, to learn how to use them for the advantages they have. Letting them interfere with situations that require objective reasoning, like scientific experiments, or situations in which others are dependent upon, such as the decisions of a president, could have harmful consequences due to poor decisions.

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Hi there,

I've attempted the essay topic myself and its not perfect as I tried to adhere to the time frame as best as possible. You can find my essay below:

 

People who make decisions based on emotion and justify those decisions with logic afterwards are not necessarily poor decision makers. Their approach is not a sure way to avoid bad decisions however it can lead to some truly great decisions. The interplay between logic and emotions is far more complex and grey than some might perceive it.

 

When assessing what decision making process is best, we must look at the type of decision itself. Some decisions require us to be logical while others emotional. For example when deciding the annual budget of a company, the finance manager will base his new budget decisions on data and facts- i.e logic. However, when a woman is making a decision of whether to move away for a better job or stay with her aging parents, her emotions play a central role. She might feel happier fulfilling her duties as a daughter and will decide to forgo the job opportunity.

 

Interestingly, some decisions require interplay of both logic and emotions. For example, a couple buying a home may pay close attention to their budget and distance of home from where they work as well as how the house ‘feels’. As illustrated, one cannot conclusively state that those who make decisions emotionally then justify them with logic afterwards are poor decision makers. The use of logic and emotions is a wide spectrum with many types of decisions spread across it.

 

Furthermore, even when one is presented with a decision that requires more of logic, say the financial manager above, one can still make great decisions soley based on emotions. The emotion we are talking about here is the ‘gut feeling’ or ‘instinct’. Humans and animals alike are born with an innate ability to discern bad from good decisions without ever having a logical explanation or justification for it. This ‘gut feeling’ is what made chefs create great dishes and what drove the giants of the Silicon valley to quit their ivy-league education and sell computers. So our financial manager above may argue to increase the budget of the R&D department despite losses because he has a gut feeling that the company will produce a revolutionary product the coming year.

 

Lastly, if one does base his or her decisions on emotions first then justifies them with logic, then that decision is rendered sound. These very people who are able to support their feelings with logic may very well be the best decision makers of all time. It is also important to explore the concept that having a good feeling about something might be good enough ‘logic’ in itself. Some people may find it very illogical to live their lives while not feeling happy about the decisions they make.

 

If we look at some of the best decisions ever made in history whether in military combat, science or business we find that emotions ever-so-play a central role. Both emotions and logic are important, if one defines logic as a discrete entity away from emotions.

 

To conclude, Leonardo Da Vinci was not only hailed as one of the greatest artists of his time but also one of the most talented and prolific engineers as well. Similarly, Oprah while a great philanthropist is also one of the most powerful businesswomen. Great people often use both logic and emotions, and perhaps a little more of the latter to build great business, awe-inspiring buildings and works of art- the direct result of a string of great decisions.

 

My evaluation of your essay:

+ good structure

+ great that you defined what is logic and what is emotions to you in the 3rd paragraph. I failed to do that and remembered it only in the end of the essay

 

 

- use of 'big words' that just look out of place, sometimes it shows that you are using words you've learned from the flashcards to show off. like indolent, which is used before describing things not people normally.

- grammar issues like "emotions are exist" should be "emotions exist"

- you did not address the other point view. This is a great tip i've learned when writing an argumentative essay, is that you refute any arguments that would naturally arise in your readers mind. Like save a paragraph to discuss why someone would argue emotions are more important than logic and break them down.

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Thank you for your critique. What score would you give mine? I ran out of time for a contention paragraph, so I merged my contention point with the conclusion paragraph.

 

+ Clearly stated thesis

+ Solid reasons and examples, except for the "Lastly" paragraph. I think you could've left this and the next paragraph out and come up with a contention paragraph instead. I'm finding it hard to distinguish the "point of view" paragraph you are describing.

+ Stays on topic

 

- Intro paragraph would be more powerful if used different words than the prompt, in your own words. It would also be better if your thesis was not the first sentence.

- Grammar: Commas left out: "Their approach is not a sure way to avoid bad decisions, however it can lead to some truly great decisions "i.e., logic". I'm not quite sure if the hyphen is used properly before it.

- Beginning of paragraphs: While I'm not completely sure, I think your writing style will be more powerful if you chose to start paragraphs with using words like "Furthermore, lastly, interestingly, etc". It's a bumpy approach for transitions.

- Restate your thesis in the conclusion. Also, artist/philanthropist don't necessarily correlate strongly with emotion and engineering/businesswomen could use a lot of emotion.

 

My score for you: 4.0

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Thanks for your comments, I will try to avoid my mistakes next time!!

Also just for this statement:

"Emotions drive behaviour such as falling in love, choosing an appropriate career path, making lifelong friendships. When making decisions, however, they can cloud judgments and and lead to poor decisions."

 

Falling in love and making friendships are also decisions! So be careful about specifying your argument. Like say when making personal decisions and pretty important ones, emotions drive that but when you are president of the states.. logic is more important. Like try to qualify your argument within a context. Don't leave like that.

 

Also, i think that answering the prompt plays an important part. The question says "consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true". So I think that in each and every paragraph the words should be phrased that way or that at least the statements kind of answer the question. Thats what goes on my mind when i'm writing an essay :)

 

I also give you a solid 4.0 !

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I think both of you deserve more than a 4.@stirlingb12 I think you need to connect your paragraphs the way they probably want it -- use linking words. Also, try to incorporate the argument you are trying to refute earlier in your essay so that it doesn't seem so rushed towards the end. I actually think it's good that you used GRE vocabulary, I also thought indolent could be used for people, but if you want to be sure use those words you are sure you understood correctly and know in which context they can be used. Overall, I preferred the other essay you wrote but this one's not so bad either.

@Al2ola I think your essay is a little more fluid, although I didn't like your introduction, I agree that by making your fist sentence your thesis sentence it feels like you're answering a question rather than writing an entire essay which lowers its general quality. In my opinion you should use some GRE words (I'm pretty sure they grade that) and try to make your sentences seem different. Other than that I liked it and I believe it's more towards a 5 than a 4.

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@Al2ola, sure no problem, I mean all that I said. Don't make your intro too long either, I read yesterday on the kaplan blog we shouldn't focus too much on the introduction. So perhaps you can keep it short just camouflage it so it doesn't look like a blunt answer to the question ;)
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