Issue Task Directions - ANALYTICAL

The following below are the

• Directions for the 'Issue Task' section from the Analytical Writing section of the GRE Test.

• Two sample issue topics.

Directions for the Issue Task

• Present Your Perspective on an Issue in 45 Minutes
  

You will have a choice between two Issue topics. Each topic will appear as a brief quotation that states or implies an issue of general interest. Read each topic carefully; then decide on which topic you could write a more effective and well-reasoned response.

You will have 45 minutes to plan and compose a response that presents your perspective on the topic you select. A response on any other topic will receive a zero. You are free to accept, reject, or qualify the claim made in the topic you selected, as long as the ideas you present are clearly relevant to the topic. Support your views with reasons and examples drawn from such areas as your reading, experience, observations, or academic studies.

GRE readers who are college and university faculty will read your response and evaluate its overall quality, based on how well you do the following

• consider the complexities and implications of the issue
• organize, develop, and express your ideas on the issue
• support your ideas with relevant reasons and examples
• control the elements of standard written English.

You may want to take a few minutes to think about the issue and to plan a response before you begin writing. Be sure to develop your ideas fully and organize them coherently, but leave time to reread what you have written and make any revisions that you think are necessary.

Issue Topic Selection

Present your perspective on one of the issues below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.

TOPIC 1:

"Both the development of technological tools and the uses to which humanity has put them have created modern civilizations in which loneliness is ever increasing."

TOPIC 2:

"Our declining environment may bring the people of the world together as no politician, philosopher, or war ever could. Environmental problems are global in scope and respect no nation's boundaries. Therefore, people are faced with the choice of unity and cooperation on the one hand or disunity and a common tragedy on the other."