The Pool of Issue Topics
This page contains the Issue topics for the analytical writing section of the GRE General Test. When you take the test, you will be presented with two Issue topics from this pool.
The wording of some topics in the test might vary slightly from what is presented here. Therefore, read your test topics carefully and respond to the wording as it appears in the actual test.
Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
1. "Important truths begin as outrageous, or at least uncomfortable, attacks upon the accepted wisdom of the time."
2. "Originality does not mean thinking something that was never thought before; it means putting old ideas together in new ways."
3. "Laws should not be rigid or fixed. Instead, they should be flexible enough to take account of various circumstances, times, and places."
4. "It is always an individual who is the impetus for innovation; the details may be worked out by a team, but true innovation results from the enterprise and unique perception of an individual."
5. "The function of science is to reassure; the purpose of art is to upset. Therein lies the value of each."
6. "The study of an academic discipline alters the way we perceive the world. After studying the discipline, we see the same world as before, but with different eyes."
7. "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."
8. "What most human beings really want to attain is not knowledge, but certainty. Gaining real knowledge requires taking risks and keeping the mind open—but most people prefer to be reassured rather than to learn the complex and often unsettling truth about anything."
9. "Many problems of modern society cannot be solved by laws and the legal system because moral behavior cannot be legislated."
10. "The way students and scholars interpret the materials they work with in their academic fields is more a matter of personality than of training. Different interpretations come about when people with different personalities look at exactly the same objects, facts, data, or events and see different things."
11. "It is dangerous to trust only intelligence."
12. "As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more complex and more mysterious."
13. "It is a grave mistake to theorize before one has data."
14. "Scandals—whether in politics, academia, or other areas—can be useful. They focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could."
15. "Practicality is now our great idol, which all powers and talents must serve. Anything that is not obviously practical has little value in today's world."
16. "It is easy to welcome innovation and accept new ideas. What most people find difficult, however, is accepting the way these new ideas are put into practice."
17. "Success, whether academic or professional, involves an ability to survive in a new environment and, eventually, to change it."
18. "If people disregard the great works of the past, it is because these works no longer answer the needs of the present."
19. "As long as people in a society are hungry or out of work or lack the basic skills needed to survive, the use of public resources to support the arts is inappropriate—and, perhaps, even cruel—when one considers all the potential uses of such money."
20. "Education should be equally devoted to enriching the personal lives of students and to training students to be productive workers."
- This first post contains the first twenty of the issue topics, wil be coming to know about the others in the coming posts.
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