Hi, I am preparing for my upcoming GRE exam. Can you please rate/review my attempt for an issue question below. Thank you very much.
As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
I totally agree that as people use technology to solve problems more frequently, the ability of humans to think for themselves will deteriorate.
In nowadays humans tend to find answers online other than think of a problem for a long time, which provides them less time to think deeply on the problem. For example, sometimes when facing a seemingly challenge mathematical problem, if I have a laptop and Google in front of me, I cannot resist to search the answer online to see if someone else have a good solution to it. Fortunately most of the times I can easily get a perfect answer and treat it as my answer. Unfortunately by searching the answer instead of really working out a solution, I miss the opportunity to have my own and deep understanding of the question. If you ask me the same question one week later, I might even forget I have seen it before. What’s worse is that I find myself gradually having less patience to think of a seemingly challenge but actually straightforward problem. I become a dependent on Goolge and internet. Therefore it is clear that frequent use of technology deteriorate humans’ capability of thinking on their own by providing less time and patience on a problem.
Additionally, the increasing use of technology provides less opportunity for people to grow their creativity. Personally I am a fan of Chinese cuisine and culinary since my childhood. I can still remember that at the times when internet was not that popular, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen trying various recipes coming out of my own mind, though some of them having a strange taste. However after I found there are tons of videos on Youtube including various school of Chinese cuisines, I never want to try my own idea any more. I just follow the well-defined recipes there. Most of the time it works perfectly. I have no incentive any more to create a new dish out of my unique mind.
To conclude, the frequent use of technology has made people more dependent on it and less incentive to think of their own.
Hi Wenbo, for TOEFL and IELTS essays, personal examples are fine and actually greatly encouraged. But for these GRE essays, I think they are expecting more of an academic type of essay that relies more on logic and reasoning to answer the prompt and your answer should focus on society as a whole, not your personal experience. They also want you to address the opposing viewpoint and show why possible counterarguments are either not important or not valid. Also, your introduction is quite short and you have pretty much copied the prompt word-for-word.
Try to paraphrase it a little more and provide a somewhat more lengthy intro and conclusion.
Here are some specific suggestions:
Hi, these sample benchmark essays for this topic might be useful for you. To me your essay appears to be around the three level, but your over-reliance on personal anecdotes might reduce your score:
Thank you very much for the reply. I will see the website and re-write my essay. This is sort of like my first GRE essay under the 30min time constraint. I’ll keep improving from here.
You are welcome - I didn’t mean to come across as being harsh, but I just wanted to make sure you are on track and practicing the correct format for GRE essays.
No worries. I know you are not harsh:). It’s better that it is you not the ETS raters are the one telling me I was on a wrong direction. Actually you helped me a lot with my TOEFL and statement for my master’s application several years ago. I do always appreciate your help. I have just written a new one and attach it here. Please let me know your thought on this one.
With modern technology getting involved in people’s daily-life everywhere, some people argue that the capability that we think of ourselves will be weakened without any doubt. I do not agree with this one-fit-for-all argument since although in some cases people tend to replace their own thinking with alternative technological solution, there are situations that technology pushes us to think more and deeper.
If you read today’s newspapers, I believe it does not take you much effort to locate an article in which an artificial intelligence (AI) agent surpasses human’s performance in some challenging tasks such as machine translation, medical image diagnosis or the Chinese board game Go. However does AI deteriorate our ability to think? No, instead it allows us to think deep and helps us to come up better idea. Let us use the game AI agent Alpha-Go as an example. Alpha-Go is an AI agent developed by Google’s deep brain team. It leverages the emerging deep neural network and Monte Carlo tree search method, enabling it self-learned to play the game Go by studying hundreds of thousands of previous games between human players. In 2017, it defeated the most competitive human go player Ke Jie in a series of world-focused games. However rather than weakening those world-class players, Alpha-Go presented to them a few fantastic winning strategies in the game that haven’t been employed by any human player before. Even Ke Jie himself says that playing with Alpha-Go is an inspirational experience driving him to think of more creative tactics.
Notwithstanding, it is obvious that we cannot hide the facts that people tend to resort to technology to substitute their own idea. You may notice the news that in universities’ commencements more and more graduates thank Google first in their acknowledgement even before their parents and professors. If you work in universities, it would be not uncommon to hear instructors complaining that their students hand in the same but incorrect solution in the homework and the solution turns out to be the first result appeared in Google search. By relying on Google rather than working out their own solution, students become less patient and creative when facing a seemingly challenging but straightforward question and therefore lose the opportunity to obtain a deeper understanding on the related knowledge.
To conclude, technology does improve our capability to think deeper and more creative in some cases, though it brings negative effect as well. We as inventors of those technology shall not blame technology. Instead we have to stay on top of it to benefit our community.
Hi Wenbo, yes I remember helping you back then and I am glad you have returned to the new and improved forum. I think this answer is a lot better. I especially liked your first body paragraph.
For your second one, it would have been a good idea to present a counter-argument. To counter the prevalent idea you have presented that “Google makes students lazy”, you could have continued by responding that used correctly, internet tools including Google open up a world of knowledge that was inaccessible just one generation ago. Kids used to have to rely on the encyclopedia Brittanica, but now the whole world of information is at their fingertips, from the latest scientific journals to historical primary source documents. So stress that technology is a tool that of course can be used as a crutch, but more often is used as a springboard to allow its users to reach pinnacles of understanding previously unimaginable. In other words, for this type of essay it is still better to plant yourself firmly on one side of the issue, but you do need to address the other side and show why it is invalid. And you always want to end with the argument for your side - “Sure, some may say that A is better, but they fail to account for fact 1 and fact 2 shows that A is no longer very good, so it is clear, considering facts 3 and 4, that B is by far the best choice”}
Yes. I didn’t realize that old forum had been closed until I found this one by searching “Luschen english forum” on Google. Thanks for you suggestions and they are very helpful as usual. I may try an another issue and argument topics respectively and I will post them here as well.
I just wrote an essay for the argument task. Please rate it and offer me some reply. Thanks in advance.
In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating and fishing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes little of its budget to maintaining riverside recreational facilities. For years there have been complaints from residents about the quality of the river’s water and the river’s smell. In response, the state has recently announced plans to clean up Mason River. Use of the river for water sports is therefore sure to increase. The city government should for that reason devote more money in this year’s budget to riverside recreational facilities.
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on the assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
At a first glance, it seems reasonable to expect an increasing use of the Mason river for water sports given the announced clean-up plan. However after taking a close look at some of unstated assumptions, we can easily see this conclusion is not irrefutable. The argument takes many assumptions, which may not be true, for granted and therefore severely weakens the conclusion.
First, the argument assumes that the pollutant water and stinky smell is the only reason why Mason City residents don’t choose the Mason river for water sports without presenting evidence for the non-existence of other factors. What if the residents just want to travel out of town to escape from the weekdays’ tiredness besides playing water sports? Apparently a cleaner and better smell water cannot pull them back to the Mason river. What if the weather condition in other places are much more suitable for water sports than the Mason river? An improved water condition cannot change the weather as well. There are so many alternative factors could influence people’s choice, each of which would seriously weaken the argument.
Second, although the state government has already announce the remedy plan, the argument does not indicate any detailed information regarding it. What if the government’s cleaning plan cannot be executed until two years later when the current financial deficit is resolved? Then it would be unreasonable to expect an increase usage right away and to request a budget in this year. Even if the government executes the plan immediately, the argument fails to show how long it will take to clean the water. What if the government contractor estimates a three-year projects to complete the cleaning project? Therefore requesting a fund for the water facility improvement can be a waste of taxpayers’ money.
To conclude, although there is possibility that the usage for water sports in the Mason river could be increasing in this year, the conclusion is compromised by taking many fundamental assumptions for granted.
@Luschen Can you please review this essay as well if you have time. Thank you very much.
Hi Wenbo, it is better if you start a new thread for each essay. That helps users of the forum to better search for specific essay types and topics.
I think this is a very good essay. You have raised some very legitimate assumptions and shown pretty clearly how they could devalue the argument. One factor you missed is whenever the argument involves a survey, you should be sure to question the methodology, including sample size, and actual questions. For instance, maybe the respondents pictured swimming in a pool when answering the poll question about swimming. You did mention alternative locations, but you never really questioned the Mason River’s suitability for recreation. Are there any game fish living in the river? Is the river suitable for swimming, or is the current too strong or the water too cold? or is it too shallow for boating or does commercial shipping traffic make recreational uses dangerous? Another topic you skirted around is are there more suitable water sports friendly areas nearby? If the city is surrounded by beautiful lakes that the citizens are used to enjoying, it is probably not the best use of the budget since there is already so much competition. Your second body paragraph seems to hit all of the correct points though. Here are some additional comments: