GMAT ISSUE类作文范文-46

Topic:

Businesses are as likely as are governments to establish large bureaucratism but bureaucracy is far more damaging to a business than it is to a government.

Instructions:

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion expressed above. Support your point of view with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations or reading.

Sample Essay

Contrary to the statement's premise, my view is that businesses are less likely than government to establish large bureaucracies, because businesses know that they are more vulnerable than government to damage resulting from bureaucratic inefficiencies. My position is well supported by common sense and by observation.

First, public administrators lack the financial incentives to avoid bureaucratic waste. In contrast, inefficiencies in a private corporation will reduce profits, inflicting damage in the form of job cuts, diminishing common-stock value, and reducing employee compensation. These are ample incentives for the private firm to minimize bureaucratic waste.

Second, there is almost no accountability among government bureaucrats. The electorate's voting power is too indirect to motivate mid-level administrators, whose salaries and jobs rarely depend on political elections. In contrast, private corporations must pay strict attention to efficiency, since their shareholders hold an immediate power to sell their stock, thereby driving down the company's market value.

Third, government is inherently monopolistic, large, and unwieldy; these features breed bureaucracy. Admittedly some corporations rival state governments in size. Yet even among the largest companies, the profit motive breeds a natural concern for trimming waste, cutting costs, and streamlining operations. Even virtual monopolies strive to remain lean and nimble in order to maintain a distance from upstart competitors. When government pays lip service to efficiency, shrewd listeners recognize this as political rhetoric designed only to pander to the electorate.

In the final analysis, financial incentives, accountability, and competition all distinguish private business from government, both in terms of their likelihood of establishing large bureaucracies and in terms of the damage that these bureaucracies can inflict on the organization.

 

GMAT ISSUE类作文范文-47

Topic:

“The best way to preserve the natural environment is to impose penalties —whether fines, imprisonment, or other punishments—on those who are most responsible for polluting or otherwise damaging it.”

Instructions:

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your point of view with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

Sample Essay

The responsibility for preventing environmental damage should be shared by government, private industry, and individuals alike. The primary obligation, however, belongs to individuals. Moreover, within organizations like the government or a corporation, responsibility should be increasingly distributed to individuals according to level of authority.

The primary obligation to preserve the environment belongs to individuals for the reason that assigning responsibility to a government or corporation is problematic. This is because abstract entities like these do not fulfill the usual criteria for being responsible. An entity can shoulder responsibility only if it can be held accountable for its actions. Furthermore, being held accountable for an action requires that the entity act willingly and on the basis of conscious intentions. But governments and businesses are abstractions, having neither will nor consciousness beyond that of the individuals within them.

Still, we can make some sense of treating corporations and governments as if they were individuals. They are individuals under the law, and therefore subject to laws, penalties, and lawsuits. They can even be identified as beneficiaries in wills. Nevertheless, when responsibility is vaguely allocated to abstract entities like governments or corporations, it becomes easy for those within such organizations to cover individual actions that result in devastation to the environment. Consider the famous case of the Exxon Valdez accident and oil spill off the Alaskan coast. While it was easy to single out Captain Hazelwood and determine his blameworthiness the night of the mishap, it was not so easy to identify those responsible at higher levels. Someone was responsible for hiring Hazelwood; others should have known about his drinking or other job-related problems. Thus when we do assign responsibility to governments or business organizations, it must be clearly distributed to individuals in relevant lines of authority within the organization.

In conclusion, individuals are mainly responsible for protecting the environment. And while it makes some sense in a vague way to talk about the similar responsibilities of government and industry, in the end such obligations will belong to individuals within them. Therefore, some individuals will assume greater shares of responsibility for the environment, since they act in positions of authority on behalf of government or industry.

 

GMAT ISSUE类作文范文-48

Topic:

In matching job candidates with job openings, managers must consider not only such variables as previous work experience and educational background but also personality traits and work habits which are more difficult to judge.

Instructions:

What do you consider essential in an employee or colleague? Explain, using reasons and/or examples from your work or work like experiences or from your observations of others.

Sample Essay

In the hiring process, it is more difficult to assess personality and work habits than to determine work experience and educational background. Even so, it is important to try and judge the less quantifiable characteristics of a prospective colleague or employee—such as honesty, reliability, creativity, self-motivation, and the capacity to get along and work well with other. If it doesn’t seem obvious that these are important qualities in a coworker, then consider the alternatives.

First of all, dishonest or unreliable workers harm an organization in many ways. Dishonest employees impose costs on a company whether they steal on the grand or small scale; just taking a few days of unwarranted sick leave here and there can add up to significant lost productivity. And lying about progress on a project can result in missed deadlines and even lost contracts. Unreliability works the same way; if an employee cannot meet deadlines or fails to appear at important meetings, the organization will suffer accordingly.

In addition, coworkers who lack motivation or creativity take some the life out of an organization. To the extent that employees simply plug along, the motivation to implement ideas are productive and can spark those around them to greater achievement.

Finally, employees who cannot get along with or work well with others can as well be detrimental to the organization. The mere presence of a troublemaker is disruptive; moreover, the time such people spend on petty disagreements is time away from getting the job done successfully. In addition, those who cannot smoothly coordinate their efforts with other will end up making things more difficult for everyone else.

In conclusion, it may not be easy to judge the personality traits and work habits of prospective employees, but it certainly is worth the effort to try. Having coworkers who are honest, reliable, creative, self-motivated, compatible with one another and good team players will greatly enhance everyone’s work life, and benefit an organization in the most significant way—with greater productivity.

 

GMAT ISSUE类作文范文-49

Topic:

Ask most older people to identify the key to success and they are likely to reply hard work. Yet, I would tell people starting off in a career that work in itself is not the key. In fact, you have to approach work cautiously - too much or too little can be self-defeating.

Instructions:

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this view of work? Develop your position by using reasons and/or examples from your reading, experience or observations.

Sample Essay

There is no doubt that hard work contributes to success. Yet a person can work awfully hard and still achieve very little. In order to bring about success， hard work has to be directed by dear goals and the knowledge of how to reach them. Moreover， imagination， intelligence and persistence can be equally important to success. Individual success is gauged by the extent to which one reaches his important personal goals. And it takes careful planning to set goals and discover the best means of realizing them. Before hard work even begins， therefore， considerable time and effort should be spent on planning.

Intelligence and imagination play important roles in planning. Imagination helps one to envision new solutions to problems， and new means by which to achieve goals. Intelligence helps one research and critically evaluate the possibilities that imagination has provided. Together， imagination and intelligence can even help one avoid certain kinds of hard work， by producing more efficient ways to accomplishgoals.

Finally， persistence is crucial to success. Sometimes， rewards do not come quickly—even when one carefully sets the goals， creatively and intelligently plans ways to achieve them， and work hard according to plan. Tradition has it， for example， that Thomas Edison made thousands of attempts to create a light bulb before he finally succeeded. In the face of countless failures， he refused to quit. In fact， he considered each failure a successful discovery of what not to do!

In conclusion， it is true that there is no substitute for hard work. But hard work is an ingredient of success， and not the key. Hard work can produce real accomplishment only if it is directed by a plan involving some idea of one‘s goals and the means to them. And a good plan， as well as its successful implementation， requires imagination, intelligence， and persistence.

 

GMAT ISSUE类作文范文-50

Topic:

How far should a supervisor go in criticizing the performance of a subordinate? Some highly successful managers have been known to rely on verbal abuse and intimidation.

Instructions:

Do you think that this is an effective means of communicating expectations? If not, what alternative should a manager use in dealing with someone whose work is less than satisfactory? Explain your views on this issue. Be sure to support your position with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations or reading.

Sample Essay

Unsatisfactory employee performance demands appropriate response from a manager or supervisor. The question is what is appropriate? Some managers might claim that verbal abuse and intimidation are useful in getting employees to improve. While this may be true in exceptional cases, my view is that the best managerial responses generally fulfill two criteria; (1) they are respectful: and (2) they are likely to be the most effective in the long run.

Treating employees with respect is important in all contexts. Respect, in the most basic sense, involves treating a person as equal in importance to oneself. For a manager or supervisor, this means recognizing that occupying a subordinate position does not make a worker a lesser person. And it means treating subordinates as one would want to be treated—honestly and fairly. Using threats or verbal abuse to elicit better employee performance amounts to treating a worker like the office copy machine—as an object from which to get what one wants.

Moreover, while verbal abuse might produce the desired reaction at a particular time, it is likely to backfire later. Nobody likes to be abused or intimidated. If such methods were the general practice in an office or division, overall morale would probably be low. And it is unlikely that employees would give 100 percent to managers who so obviously disregarded them.

More beneficial in the long run would be careful but clear feedback to the worker about specific deficiencies, along with ideas and encouragement about improvement. In addition, supervisors should allow employees to explain the problem from their point of view and to suggest solutions. Of course, a supervisor should never mislead a subordinate into thinking that major problems with work performance are insignificant or tolerable. Still, an honest message can be sent without threats or assaults on self-esteem.

In conclusion, supervisors should avoid using verbal abuse and threats. These methods degrade subordinates, and they are unlikely to produce the best results in the long run. It is more respectful, and probably more effective overall, to handle cases of substandard work performance with clear, honest and supportive feedback.

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