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Q. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Always telling the truth is the most important consideration in any relationship between people. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. My response: I strongly believe that honesty is the best policy. Having said that, I have also come to realize that nothing is absolute, including ‘truth’. Everything is relative, and like so many other things, whether one should tell the truth or not in a relationship also sometimes depends upon the situation. Our intentions and actions are dependent upon the context in which we see things and our previous experiences. So one should make an effort in rationally understanding the reason behind somebody’s thought process when told the truth. In a situation where, a person has made a mistake or done something unintentionally and later realized that it might end up hurting the other person, I think coming out clean about what one did is the way to go. As until one tells the truth, one keeps on feeling guilty about that act of error. So, for one’s own peace of mind and clear conscience, I would recommend telling the whole truth. In the end, if the other person truly respects and cherishes the relationship, they would understand and let bygones be bygones. Whereas in a situation where even telling the truth might not help the problem or maybe even make it worse, it is better to not say anything. For example, if somebody is behaving in an erratic manner because they are going through an emotionally difficult phase, it will not help to confront that person with the blatant truth. In that case, one should support that person and give them their space. If their behavior is going out of hand, then maybe it can be subtly pointed out in a manner that will not hurt their feelings too much but will also let them know what the issue is. Such situations are tricky and need to be handled very carefully. As relationships can be very involved at times, there is no one right answer to that question. However, from my personal experience I can say that telling the truth is the right thing to do in more than ninety percent of the situations.

Let me start by saying that I am a GRE tutor, so it wouldn't be to relevant for me to post any information on "how I studied for the GRE," but I thought I would just post a few thoughts about the exam. I took it back in August, but since I just recently received my score I thought I would share a few observations... My perspective might be skewed, but although the test is supposed to be section adaptive, I didn't really notice the sections get noticeably harder. This was particularly true of the Quant section, the section that I thought would have a more obvious shift once I was facing the "harder" section. So prospective test takers should not read into the level of difficulty of the questions on a section....just do your best on don't think about that. Given that I have so much experience with the GRE, I took only one practice test prior to my exam, and that was really only to get familiar with the new features of the exam (skipping and marking questions, etc.). I must say, however, that on my first section (Verbal) I did not manage my time as well as I could have (given the opportunity to skip around and come back). I corrected that on the rest of the test, but I would urge other test takers to really practice with the new features (figure 4 or 5 practice tests at the least) so that you can learn to manage your time wisely (every question is worth the same amount, so it doesn't make sense to spend undue time on a question that you are struggling with). As I had expected, the vocab that was tested on the Verbal section did not consist of extremely difficult words. There were one or two words that I didn't know, but if you look at the sentence equivalence and text completion questions in the Official Guide you will see that it is really more about the reasoning aspects of those questions than about vocab (and this is really in line with the new direction that the GRE has taken). Some of the vocab that you see in the test prep books that are on the market is way over the top. For example, the ManhattanGRE book, which is a good book in some ways, uses words that are way too obscure and difficult in its drills. Even at the medium level, most of those words are just too hard and are unlikely to appear on the test. I'm not saying that you shouldn't study vocab, because there will be difficult words and vocabulary is relative anyway in that some people really have a very limited vocabulary and will need to some serious studying. I just wouldn't worry too much about some of the most difficult words that you see in test prep books, etc. and I would try to focus a little more on the critical thinking skills that are required on the Verbal questions. Finally, a word about the Writing section. I just recently tutored a person who felt that he had underperformed on the Writing section. After working with him, I realized that one problem was that he wasn't really following the directions. Be aware that a new aspect of the revised GRE is that the Issue and Argument essays have a variety of different "instructions prompts" and that the test makers expect you to read those carefully and follow the directions. So if the instructions tell you to consider the ways in which your point of view might be challenged, you should make an effort to do so. Anyway, hope that feedback helps....good luck to all of you prospective GRE test takers!

Many people believe that the progress affects people's lives in a positive way. Therefore, they consider that governments should always try to support progress. Nonetheless, I think that uncontrolled progress can cause many problems. Therefore, I disagree with the statement that it is always good for several significant reasons. First of all, it should be taken into account that progress can lead to environmental problems. For example, due to the uncontrolled economic development natural resources are exploited by people unsophisticatedly. Due to the exploitation of natural resources such as fossil fuels, the amount of carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere increases every year. Carbon dioxide which is a green house gas increases the temperature on Earth significantly and it leads to a plenty of problems. Secondly, I believe that progress can lead to the disappearance of national values. For example, due to the speedy and comfortable transportation every year thousands of people travel to other countries. Mass tourism creates many problems for small minorities in certain countries. For example, people in developing countries are affected by western culture significantly and they forget their national values. These people affected by dominant cultures do not go on wearing their traditional clothes or live in a traditional way. Thus, progress causes disappearance of national identity. In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that my argument will probably be unacceptable to some people. For example, one can say that progress raises the life standard of people considerably; therefore it should be encouraged in any circumstances. Nonetheless, what I have argued here is that uncontrolled progress causes many problems such as environmental problems and disappearance of national values. For all of these reasons, I believe that progress is not always good. I have defined progress as economic and technological development. Have I addressed the essay directly to the topic? Thanks in advance.