GREAWfailend

B is correct ONLY if there were no "political correctness": basically it says it is assumed that mechanization has a good (dramatic) effect, but it has bad (undermine) effect on women's "traditional roles" --- because women no longer stay at home taking care of kids and housework but work as men. Too bad such a "sympathy" and "nostalgia" does not work well in GRE as it would be taken as a red flag of "emotionality" and "immaturity" and probably a lack of "critical thinking", thus a wrong answer. Therefore have to go with E, which is saying although mechanization has a revolutionary (note this word: very pc...) yet it reinforced the traditional roles of women, which ETS (and all progressiveness) believe is a BAD thing. uhm... reinforce the traditional role of women is a BAD thing; welcome to the First Law of PCness in GRE :stupid:

Please review my following Issue essay and rate it. Thanks for all your help guys! :D ISSUE 1 As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate. 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. --------------------------------------------------- With the development of science and technology made through out the human history, especially the past one hundred years or so, people these days are spending more time relying on technology to solve various types of problems. Does the ability of humans to think for themselves really deteriorate as they rely more and more on technology? Admittedly, the improvement of technology and its concomitant contribution to a more convenient daily life does to certain extent obviate the necessity of many traditional tasks, subtly affecting the humans’ ability of thinking. Nevertheless, as a whole effect in general, technology progress improves working efficiency and labor safety, and frees humans from low-level repeated physical work to high-level decision-making intellectual work. In addition, technology proposes brand-new problems as well which challenges the humans’ thinking ability to an even unexpected extent. It is true that in many situations, the requirement for thinking seems less demanding than before due to the development of technology as the “brains” of computers have replaced humans’ role in many tasks. For instance, students no longer need think hard to solve involving algebraic equations as calculators could do the job for them; engineers do not have to worry about the side effect of modifying their design drawings at one place as in the past due to the modern CAD software’s smart updates for all affected parts; people nowadays could simply forget about their previous pains of finding parking lots when they go shopping at some remote super-markets as the contemporary online shopping systems will deliver the customers anything they need right away with the help of modern logistics, information technology and advanced transportation tools. The development of technology does so much that humans are no longer required to solve many of the traditional tasks and consequently humans’ ability of thinking seems indeed less explored, exercised or even deteriorating. But does the improvement of technology really eliminate the necessity of thinking and deprive humans of their opportunity of solving problems by themselves? With the fading away of stereotyped problems, such as solving algebraic equation on a piece of sketch paper, people are now faced with completely new types of problems, such as how to utilize calculators and computers to solve more complex problems where instead of the regular manipulation innovation and creativity are tested. Technology on the one hand frees humans from the boring and repeated work, yet on the other hand brings in more demanding tasks. In the old says, factory workers have to operate their machines for repeated parts processing which seemed very laborious, however, nowadays they have to program CNC machines for automatic parts manufacturing and tool replacement and they are asked to work on more than one CNC machines as the manager feels the employees are “working less”. Technology does replace humans’ role in many traditional tasks, but technology puts humans in new positions which are more intellectually based. In addition, with the emergence of new technologies, a host of new problems also turn up. The new technology of utilizing nuclear energy for generating electricity brings forward new questions of its ecological impact when the nuclear plant’s cooling water, contaminated with radiation, is discharged into the rivers and ocean. While the development of antibiotics helped cure many patients with infection, it at the same time also produced the question of bacteria’s developed immunity which makes many previously effective medicines invalid and that whether the development of these antibiotics indirectly facilitates the mutation of bacteria towards a more hazardous and dangerous state. All these new problems never existed before the development of these new technologies and they require far more thinking than the old problems. In conclusion, while technology frees humans from the traditional laborious work, eliminating the necessity of thinking for the stereotyped problems, yet technology meanwhile brings forth new types of problems which are more intellectually intense and even unprecedented. Humans’ mind has been working on all kinds of problems throughout the history to keep up with pace of our world change. With the development of technology, old problems might become obsolete but new problems with more challenges will never stop appearing, ensuring the opportunity for humans’ mind to explore and develop to higher state and securing the brains’ role of thinking from deteriorating.

Yep, for example, in your 3rd paragraph: "As far as building and maintaining of civil society is our pivotal aim there are (is) no formal basis for educational institution to take the responsibility for an individual educational choice." I think you can add one or two more sentences explaining it a bit more, such as "because the role of educational institution is ..." This is my personal opinion... I'm struggling in the GRE writing nightmare too :D

No. If one disagrees with the opinion the prompt gives, one needs to provide his/her own opinions and reasons for his/her own position. He/she does not need to exhaust in finding out the logic flaws in the "reasoning process" of the arguer, because in many cases the Issue prompt has no or very little reasoning process to support the author's own idea, i.e. the author's logic flaws are not as many as in the Arg --- the author simply states his/her position. On the other hand, for the Arg, the mission is to find all the logical fallacies in the argument but not to provide the test takers' personal opinion. hope it helps :)

I think the major reason for the eligibility of a task is not only decided by the physical difference, but intelligence difference, emotional difference, and many other indices as well. Since it's not always true that man surpass women in All aspects, nor do women overwhelm men in Every aspect, it is unfair to blindly claim which gender is superior for all tasks. Actually the prompt only asserts the inequality involved due to physical differences between men and women; it does not explicitly contend which gender is superior, I guess the essay should also cover some part where men are more suitable for certain tasks such as sacrificing for their country etc...

very well written, classical 7-paragraph structure. Good transitions and solid examples. 5+

(1) i think you might try using first person less, making the essay a bit more formal; (2) you can also develop your body paragraphs a bit more ...

Please help grade my essay below. I basically have no idea whether what I wrote makes sense in the English-speaking grader's eyes. Help ~any comments are welcomed :D ARGUMENT 1 (New Indexing) Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a "Palean" basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the Brim River from Palea. The Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could have crossed it only by boat, and no Palean boats have been found. Thus it follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean. Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument. WORDS: 633 TIME: 00:57:00 DATE: 08/25/2011 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In this argument, the author comes to the conclusion that the “Palean” baskets were not uniquely Palean. To justify the claim, the author points out that a recent discovery of a “Palean” basket in Lithos is not made by Paleans due to the deep and broad Brim River which the author believes isolates Village Lithos from Paleans. To support his intermediate claim of the Brim River blockade, the author assumes that the only way for the Paleans to cross the Brim River is by boats, the transportation equipment that have never been found. Close scrutiny of this argument, however, reveals that it is unconvincing in several aspects. First and formost, the mere fact that no Pelean boats have been found amounts to scant evidence that the Paleans do not have boat fabrication ability. It is quite possible that the Paleans were indeed cabable of making boats, but their boat remains are not found yet, or perhaps the boat remains have all decayed that it would be impossible to find any traces of Paleans boats nowadays. Moreover, even if the Paleans themselves were unable to make boats, it does not prove that the Paleans could not obtain some boats from other group of people, either by trading or renting. Since the author does not provide clear evidence to prove the inability of Palean’s boat making at their time and the impossibility of Palean’s alternative way of boat acquisition, the author can not safely claim that the Palean’s could not cross the Brim River by boats. Secondly, even if the Paleans were not able to make or obtain boats during their time, the author unfairly assumes that the Paleans can arrive at Village Lithos only by boats. After all, there are many ways for the Paleans to cross a river, no matter how deep or broad it is. For example, the ancient Paleans could simply utilize some large wood pieces to cross the Brim River. Or they might cross the river during the winter when the water was low or even disappeared at certain locations along the Brim River. Without ruling out all these and other possible methods of crossing Brim River, the author can not convince me that the Paleans have to cross the Brim river by boats. Finally, the author’s hidden assumption that if the “Palean” basket lies somewhere it must be brought there by the Paleans otherwise it is not made by the Paleans is not supported by any evidence. Perhaps it’s the Lithos people that brought the “Palean” baskets made by the Paleans to their village. Even if the Paleans were incapable of making their own boats and they are unable to cross the Brim river, it does not indicate that the Lithos people could not. The Lithos people might well have adequate boats for them to trade with the Paleans on the other side of the Brim River, and they might well exchange their products with the Paleans for the “Palean” baskets and brought them back to Lithos, which were discovered by archaeologists recently. The author’s failure of ruling out the non-Palean basket-delivering scenario renders his conclusion based upon it highly suspect. In sum, the conclusion reached in this argument is invalid and misleading. To make it logically acceptable, the arguer would have to substantiate that the Paleans were indeed unable to make boats nor could they obtain boats from other groups and that using boats is the only way for the Paleans to cross the Brim River. Moreover, I would suspend my judgement about the credibility of this argument until the author can provide further information about whether it is the Lithos people who brought the “Palean” basket to their village, even though the “Palean” basket was still made the by Paleans uniquely.

I agree with what you said. The GRE AWA graders are not innovative but very bureaucratic and peninsular: they admire complex ideas, complex vocabulary, complex sentence structure

Overall your essay is great. You point out various cases where a blind reliance on intelligence is inappropriate or even dangerous. But one of your example of the grocery store is a bit hard to understand. I know what you mean, but it's not very "straight-forward" that the grader might feel it's "irrelevant", especially when they do not want to spend more than 2 mins grading the essay. Keep writing and you will improve your score!

I never got 4.5 in my GRE AWA. But I think the more you write and read and the more time you spend on it

i think it's pretty well written with many examples

Thank you!

Some schools do not care AWA, especially when it is engineering or science. My friend got into Stanford Mechanical Eng with an AWA of 3.0 But if you could retake it, and improve your AWA you would be perfect, because you already have very good V and Q. Good luck!

I think one of the biggest change in AWA is now there are "instructions", which is a nightmare...

no, not at all. The only problem is I do not know how to update the .dat essay prompt pool files ...

Thanks a lot Heavens! It's very similar and I can change the Issue timing to 30 mins :) No matter how much "change" ETS wants to create, I am gonna write essay any way!

I agree with what you said totally. GRE writing is hard ...

I like your logic and ideas, especially your example in the first paragraph on the importance of engineers, where you write "... then the market will end up only has the salesman, but without product." I think it is very convincing. Some comments on grammar/mechanics (well it is actually what I am bad at and was ruined by too, because I am not a native English speaker ...) ------------------------------- Educational institution is a place where the student learns knowledge and form (forms) a critical thinking which will help them success (succeed) in the future career. It has responsibility on student welfare and safety when they are in the campus, however, they should not control student which study to choose, even the study (which) has a lessen (less) chance lead (leading) to success. It is not the educational institutional's obligation to restrain student from choosing the study which has less possibility to success. Freedom plays a role in university. Student should choose the study based on their interest. For example, everyone, know (knows) that marketing has a bright future as it can generate a lot of income for company. However, the industry also need (needs) engineer (engineers) to help them to make the product. if every student go (goes) to study marketing, then the market will end up only has (with only) the salesman, but without product. It is insufficient to support the market by killing the student interest. Student should be given chance to explore on the new field of study even the study lack (lacks) of (a) promising future. A promising future means can generate () a lot of revenue and bring income for educational institution. But some study like philosophy do (does) not make money, (however) we (still) need it to let human conscience survive. Everyone likes to live in the rich society, but rich society also need (needs) philosophy to generate new idea (ideas) to keep society healthy and grow (growing). Philosophy is a tough subject and takes a lot of time and cost for student (students) to study. However, if (a) student (is) willing to spend their (time) on it, why (do) not we let them go what they want? Maybe it will end up we manage to see (as) another Newton. Education institution has a responsibility to make sure student (students) can contribute to the society and do not become a () moron (morons) or parasite (parasites) to the society. But it should not limit itself on managing student(s') studying field. Even the student(s) choose the (a) less bright future field, the educational institution can provide elective subject(s), to help them explore on () other field(s), not be an () expert(s) but has (those with?) basic knowledge on it. It can contribute to the student career and add extra curriculum to find the job. Education institution is a place where the student(s) pursuit the dream but it is not essential to give them a law to follow. A responsibility to limit student choice will kill student interest and end up produce (producing) a lot of drop out from education institution Freedom and human right should be the priority in the education institutional (institution). While guiding the student towards success, the education institution should not limit itself to control what student study. Instead of it (), they should engage themselves to open (in creating) more fields for student(s) to choose, not only for money, but also for human mankind. Investing on the youth is also an investment on education institution itself. ----------------------------------- I could be wrong in many places, feel free to comment on my comments :)

While the length of an essay is not explicitly as mentioned in ETS's grading criterion, I saw some books such as Princeton Review talking about the "length issue", which they claim is "something ETS does not want the test-taker to know" ... Since my highest grade of GRE AWA till today is 4.0 :(, I'm not sure if 460-480 is adequate and secure for 4.5: after all I'm the type who can not write long and who does not know what to write especially when 30 mins restriction is set. If you can accurately control your length between 460-480, I guess you can definitely write even a bit longer, especially for Issue section, with the identical quality, so that the grader may not argue that the essay is "not thoroughly developed" ...

This is my first argument, written without time limitation. Please comment on the defects and problems and any thing that I should improve on my essay. Thanks a lot for you guys help! TOPIC: ARGUMENT 1 Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products, is opening its next franchise in the town of Plainsville. The store should prove to be very successful: Nature's Way franchises tend to be most profitable in areas where residents lead healthy lives, and clearly Plainsville is such an area. Plainsville merchants report that sales of running shoes and exercise clothing are at all-time highs. The local health club has more members than ever, and the weight training and aerobics classes are always full. Finally, Plainsville's schoolchildren represent a new generation of potential customers: these schoolchildren are required to participate in a fitness-for-life program, which emphasizes the benefits of regular exercise at an early age. Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted. WORDS: 827 TIME: 01:24:00 DATE: 08-24-2011 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In this argument the author comes to the conclusion that the next opening of Nature's Way in Plainsville should be very successful. To justify the claim, the author points out that Nature's Way's profit success are most significant in areas where residents lead healthy lives and that Plainsville is such an area due to its local health club popularity. The author also cites Plainsville's fitness-for-life program at schools, which represents a new generation of potential customers. Close scrutiny of this argument, however, reveals that the argument is unconvincing as it relies on several suspicious assumptions. First and foremost, the author unfairly assumes that Nature's Way's profit success is the result of the healthy lives lead by an area's residents rather than some other phenomenon. The arguer ignores a host of other possible reasons for the success of Nature's Way. Perhaps the residents in those areas are financially capable of purchasing more expensive and healthful food and products; or perhaps there are fewer competition stores similar as Nature's Way in those areas. Without ruling out all other possible explanations for the business success of Nature's Way, the author can not convince me that by opening a franchise in another town where people lead healthy lives would guarantee the success of Nature's Way. Secondly, the author's poor assumption that good sales report of running shoes and exercise clothing at Plainsville is the indication of the Plainsville resident's healthy lives is unsupported. The author fails to consider other possible reasons for the good sales of sport apparels. Perhaps they purchase those types of clothes simply because of the refreshing and cool style which they believe would make them look younger and more energetic; or perhaps they order those clothes because of the apparel's comfort material and reasonable price. Similarly, the popularity of Plainsville's local health club might be explained by other reasons as well. It is possible that people go there for fun and friends making rather than health building. And the reason why those weight training and aerobics courses are always full might be the lack of enough training teachers or enough health clubs in Plainsville. Moreover, the author does not provide any information about the geographical background of the customers for the good sale and the health club participants for the club popularity: whether the majority of the customers and participants come from Plainsville or from other places. In addition, even if the residents are fond of exercising, it does not guarantee that they are actually healthy; they might take those weighting classes just becuase they have health problems. Since the author does to account for alternative explanations for the good sale report and health club popularity and fails to provide the geographical background and exact health status of the buyers and health club class-takers, the author can not assume Plainsville's residents lead healthy lives. Finally, the author's assumption on the link between potential customers and the market success of Nature's Way is totally groundless. It is true that the schoolchildren are required to participate the fitness-for-life program, but how much percent of them are going to implement it? Even if these schoolchildren do have exercise at their early age, it does not necessarily imply that they would keep doing this after they grow up, nor does it imply that the same group of schoolchildren would necessarily stay in Plainsville after they graduate. Moreover, the gap between the opening of the next store of Nature's Way in Plainsville and the maturity of the potential customers would very likely leads to the economical failure of Nature's Way's business in Plainsville as there might not be enough customers for Nature's Way before those schoolchildren grow up. Since a store's financial success is a function of both profit and expense, it is also entirely possible that Nature's Way store's cost of obtaining high-quality, health food and other products, or of promoting the new store in PLainsville, might render it unprofitable despite its popularity. Without more information about supply, demand, production costs and revenue, and whether there are enough current customers before the potential customers become available, the author's expectance of potential customers' contribution to Nature's Way store's immediate success by its next opening in Plainsville is highly doubtable. In sum, the conclusion reached in this argument is invalid and misleading. To make it logically acceptable, the arguer would have to substantiate that an area's residents' health lives is the only reason for Nature's Way store's financial success, that Plainsville indeed has the majority of its residents leading healthy lives and that Nature's Way store does have enough customers before the potential customers become available. Moreover, I would suspend my judgement about the credibility of this argument until the author can provide further information about why Nature's Way stores have their most success in areas with healthy residents, whether Plainsville is indeed such a place and whether the Nature's Way can deal with issue of the gap before potential customers become available.

what if the human civilization is indeed the unity of both science and art, can't we have a well-balanced essay?

I never believe it to be true and was deceived by other people over and over again who claim the non-existence of e-rater, but now look at what the ETS official website says (GRE: For Institutions: How the Test Is Scored) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The essay score is assigned by a trained reader, using a 6-point holistic scale. The essay response is then reviewed by e-rater®, a computerized program developed by ETS, which is being used to monitor the human reader. If the e-rater evaluation and the human score agree, the human score is used as the final score. If they disagree by a certain amount, a second human score is obtained, and the final score is the average of the two human scores. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I always got 3.0 in AW (3 times) and always feel that I should write as Shakespeare to score 6.0, but I'm wrong!! The key is to know what criterion they use.