GMAT ISSUE类作文范文-11

Topic:

When someone achieves greatness in any field - such as the arts, science, politics, or business - that person's achievements are more important than any of his or her personal faults.

Instructions:

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

Sample Essay

Are the personal failings of great achievers generally unimportant compared to the individual’s achievements, as the speaker contends? In some cases, perhaps so. However, in my view this contention amounts to an unfair generalization. The speaker overlooks that personal failing often play an integral role in the process of achieving great things—either as a catalyst for it or as part of the process. Some personal failings can serve as catalysts for great achievement. A personal failing can test the would-be achiever’s mettle; it might pose a challenge—necessary resistance that drives the individual to achieve despite the shortcoming . For example, poor academic or job performance can propel a gifted entrepreneur to start a business, which ultimately becomes the dominant player in its industry. Or, serious illness or injury can spur an athlete on to attain world-class standing in a particular sport.

Other personal failings are symbiotically connected with achievement; that is, a personal failing might be a necessary ingredient or integral part of the achievement process itself. For instance, artists and musicians often produce their most creative works during periods of depression, addiction, or other distress; indeed, an artwork’s greatness often lies in how it reflects and reveals the artist’s own failings and foibles. And in the realms of business and politics, insensitivity to the human costs of success, which I consider to be a personal failing, has bred many grand achievements. History is replete with examples—from the use of “expendable” slaves by the ancient emperors in realizing our world’s greatest monuments, to the questionable labor practices of America’s great late 19th-century industrialists. Even personal failings that are unconnected with certain achievements lie at the heart of other, unintended ones. Consider, for example, two modern American presidents: Nixon and Clinton. Nixon’s paranoia, which historians generally agree was his fatal flaw, resulted in the Watergate scandal—a watershed event in American politics, And more recently, Clinton’s marital indiscretions and subsequent impeachment prompted a national re-examination of the requisites for legitimate political leadership. Were the personal failings of Nixon and Clinton less “important” than their achievements as statesman and social reformer, respectively? Perhaps not.

Admittedly, some types of personal failings pale in importance to the individual’s achievements. For example, the people who we consider great artists, actors and musicians are often notorious for their poor financial and business judgment. Yet, in our hearts and minds this sort of failing only elevates them in greatness. Moreover, other types of personal failings are, in my view, patently more important than any achievement. For instance, many a male sports hero has found his name on a newspaper’s police blotter after committing a violent crime. In my view, the importance of any violent crime outweighs that of any sports record.

In sum, the speaker’s contention amounts to an overstatement. Current and historical events inform us that personal failings are often part-and-parcel of great achievements. And even where they are not, personal shortcomings of great achievers often make an important societal impact of their own.

 

GMAT ISSUE类作文范文-12

Topic:

Education has become the main provider of individual opportunity in our society. Just as property and money once were the keys to success, education has now become the element that most ensures success in life.

Instructions:

In your opinion, how accurate is the view expressed above? Explain, using reasons and examples based on e your own experience, observations or reading.

Sample Essay

Which factor offers more opportunities for success in our society: education or money and property? In my view, education has replaced money and property as the main provider of such opportunities today. I base my view on two reasons. First, education—particularly higher education—used to be available only to the wealthy but now is accessible to almost anyone. Second, because of the civil-rights movement and resulting laws, businesses are now required to hire on the basis of merit rather than the kinds of personal connections traditionally common among the wealthy.

Education probably always played a key role in determining one's opportunities for success. But in the past, good post-secondary education was available mainly to the privileged classes. Because money and property largely determined one's access to higher education, money and property really were the critical factors in opening doors to success. However, higher education is more egalitarian today. Given our vast numbers of state universities and financial-aid programs, virtually anyone who meets entrance requirements for college can obtain an excellent college education and open up windows of opportunity in life.

Another reason those opportunities will be open to educated young people from middle-class and poorer backgrounds is that hiring is more meritocratic today than ever before. In principle, at least, we have always been a society where all people are equal; yet in the past, children of the wealthy and the well connected could expect to obtain higher-status jobs and to receive better pay. But the laws and programs resulting from our civil-rights struggles have produced a modern business climate in which jobs are available on an equal-opportunity basis, and in which candidates have a legal right to be judged on the merit of their educational background and experience.

In conclusion, education is probably the main factor in opening doors to success for young people in our society. The fact that education has supplanted money and property in this role is owing to a more egalitarian system of higher education, as well as to more merit-based hiring practices that generally value individual education over family fortune or connections.

 

GMAT ISSUE类作文范文-13

Topic:

Responsibility for preserving the natural environment ultimately belongs to each individual person, not to government.

Instructions:

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

Sample Essay

While nearly everyone would agree in principle that certain efforts to preserve the natural environment are in humankind’s best interest, environmental issues always involve a tug of war among conflicting political and economic interests. For this reason, and because serious environmental problems are generally large in scale, government participation is needed to ensure environmental preservation.

Experience tells us that individuals tend to act on behalf of their own short-term economic and political interest, not on behalf of the environment or the public at large. For example, current technology makes possible the complete elimination of polluting emissions from automobiles. Nevertheless, neither automobile manufacturers nor consumers are willing or able to voluntarily make the short-term sacrifices necessary to accomplish this goal. Only the government holds the regulatory and enforcement power to impose the necessary standards and to ensure that we achieve such goats.

Aside from the problems of self-interest and enforcement, environmental issues inherently involve public health and are far too pandemic in nature for individuals to solve on their own. Many of the most egregious environmental violations traverse state and sometimes national borders. Environmental hazards are akin to those involving food and drug safety and to protecting borders against enemies; individuals have neither the power nor the resources to address these widespread hazards.

In the final analysis, only the authority and scope of power that a government possesses can ensure the attainment of agreed-upon environmental goals. Because individuals are incapable of assuming this responsibility, government must do so

 

GMAT ISSUE类作文范文-14

Topic:

Organizations should be structured in a clear hierarchy in which the people at each level, from top to bottom, are held accountable for completing a particular component of the work. Any other organizational structure goes against human nature and will ultimately prove fruitless.

Instructions:

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

Sample Essay

The speaker claims that all organizations should include a clear hierarchy of accountability because any other structure would work against human nature and therefore prove fruitless in the end. This claim gives rise to complex issues about human nature and the social structures best suited to it. In my view, the claim assumes a distortedly narrow view of human nature, ignoring certain aspects of it that are undermined by hierarchical structure in ways that ultimately hurt the organization.

First, the organizational structure the speaker recommends undermines the nexus between worker and product that facilitates efficiency and productivity. When employees are responsible for just their small component of work, they can easily lose sight of larger organizational goals and the importance of their role in realizing these goals. In turn, workers will feel alienated, unimportant, and unmotivated to do work they are proud of. These effects cannot help but damage the organization in the end.

Second, compartmentalizing tasks in a hierarchical structure stifles creativity. An acquaintance of mine worked for a company that had established a rigid organizational barrier between designers and engineers. The designers often provided the engineers with concepts that were unworkable from an engineering standpoint. Conversely, whenever an engineer offered a design idea that allowed for easier engineering, the designers would simply warn the engineer not to interfere. This is a typical case where organizational barriers operate against creativity, harming the organization in the end.

Third, strict hierarchy undermines the collegiality and cooperation among coworkers needed for a sense of common purpose and pride in accomplishment. The message from the designers to the engineers at my friend’s company produced just the opposite—resentment between the two departments, low morale among the engineers whose creative suggestions were ignored, and ultimate resignation to do inferior work with an attitude that developing ideas is a waste of time.

In sum, the speaker seems to assume that humans are essentially irresponsible and unmotivated, and that they therefore need external motivation by way of a layered bureaucratic structure. The speaker misunderstands human nature, which instead requires creative exercise and sense of purpose and pride in accomplishment. By stifling these needs with organizational barriers, the organization is ultimately worse off.

 

GMAT ISSUE类作文范文-15

Topic:

Nations should cooperate to develop regulations that limit children's access to adult material on the Internet.

Instructions:

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

Sample Essay

The issue here is whether an international effort to regulate children's access to adult material on the Internet is worthwhile. In my view, nations should attempt to regulate such access by cooperative regulatory effort. I base this view on the universality and importance of the interest in protecting children from harm, and on the inherently pandemic nature of the problem.

Adults everywhere have a serious interest in limiting access by children to pornographic material. Pornographic material tends to confuse children—distorting their notion of sex, of themselves as sexual beings, and of how people ought to treat one another. Particularly in the case of domination and child pornography, the messages children receive from pornographic material cannot contribute in a healthy way to their emerging sexuality. Given this important interest that knows no cultural bounds, we should regulate children's access to sexually explicit material on the Internet.

However, information on the Internet is not easily contained within national borders. Limiting access to such information is akin to preventing certain kinds of global environmental destruction. Consider the problem of ozone depletion thought to be a result of chloroflourocarbon (CFC) emissions. When the government regulated CFC production in the U.S., corporations responsible for releasing CFC's into the atmosphere simply moved abroad, and the global threat continued. Similarly, the Internet is a global phenomenon; regulations in one country will not stop "contamination" overall. Thus, successful regulation of Internet pornography requires international cooperation, just as successful CFC regulation finally required the joint efforts of many nations.

Admittedly, any global regulatory effort faces formidable political hurdles, since cooperation and compliance on the part of all nations—even warring ones—is inherently required. Nevertheless, as in the case of nuclear disarmament or global warming, the possible consequences of failing to cooperate demand that the effort be made. And dissenters can always be coerced into compliance politically or economically by an alliance of influential nations.

In sum, people everywhere have a serious interest in the healthy sexual development of children and, therefore, in limiting children's access to Internet pornography. Because Internet material is not easily confined within national borders, we can successfully regulate children's access to adult materials on the internet only by way of international cooperation.

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