Please grade my Issue Task Essay

[swk0205]

Topic:

To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities.

 

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.

 

My Response:

Society is comprised of numerous concepts such as theory, economy, arts, science, and the list goes on; however, these all boil down to one, people. To study society, one must study the people in the society and people live most in the cities. Therefore, when studying important characteristics of a society, cities are a crucial component to examine. 

 

New York is an exemplar of a big city since it is the biggest city in the world and is the financial hub. Today, New York impacts not only the United States but all the countries across the glove. When the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) faces a significant downturn, almost all the markets of the world feel the negative effects as well and the economy of the society takes an impact. Moreover, the economy is what actually shapes the country itself. During the IMF crisis in South Korea, the paradigm of people shifted immensely. My uncle was a risk-taker investing money from stock options to his own hobbies. Unfortunately, he lost a nontrivial sum of money and now seeks to just keep his job for stability. This applies not only to my uncle but for numerous other Koreans who had been affected by the IMF as well. Hence, big cities such as New York can impact society economically and subsequently, this affects the people.

 

When money flows through a city, the city begins to improve its infrastructure by investing more money. With the invested money, a handful of tech-savvy intellectuals will be scouted into that city for installing, updating, or inventing technologies. For example, the city officials constantly try to improve the roads and transportation routes to reduce congestion during rush hours. Once a sophisticated technology is utilized in a city and is proven to be safe and efficient, the government will manipulate that technology to apply it across the entire country. From roads in cities, the government will build a interstate highways and other roads using systems that have been proved successful in cities. Once technology grows in cities, other places even rural areas are affected by these technologies as well and ultimately affects society.

 

Although cities such as New York bring in much wealth to the country, one can not neglect the fact that the rural industries contribute a huge sum as well. Rural parts of Illinois for example has a booming biorefinery business that can't be overlooked financially and technologically. Moreover, some of the technologies invented and utilized in big cities are nowhere to be found in rural areas just because it can not be applied. Bigger cities have more complex metro systems like the London Tube with its spider-web like lanes. It is an amazing feat of technological advance; nonetheless, small towns like those in Alaska do not have any need for it and will not be affected.

 

Cities are crucial because they allow wealth to be exchanged across the glove that affects the citizens of those associated countries immensely. Also, cities are the cradle of technological advances that can eventually help to transform the neighboring small cities and rural towns to be more prosperous. Society is hugely affected by big cities and thus, one must study cities when studying important characteristics of a society.

 

 

I appreciate any form of advice or help given to improve my writing. Thank you very much for your time and help!

[knp]

When responding to the GRE issue prompt, you need to state an argument. Based on this prompt, there are two umbrella categories into which every response will fall.

 

1) "To understand a society, you need to study its cities."

2) "To understand a society, you do not need to study its cities."

 

Right now, your essay is in camp 1. Neither of those is a sufficient thesis, however: you can't just restate the prompt, or restate the opposite of the prompt. You need to have a because. 

 

"To understand a society, you need to study its cities because [reason or reasons]."

"To understand a society, you do not need to study its cities because [reason or reasons]."

 

For instance, to fill in the reasons, you might say ""To understand a society, you need to study its cities because they are hubs for finance and technology, and both of those things affect a whole society." Right now, your introduction just has "To understand a society, you need to study its cities." I think your essay will improve when you think of one or two reasons for your thesis, and then make sure the essay focuses on them, from the introduction through to the conclusion.

 

A way to check how each paragraph relates to your argument is to take the first sentence of each paragraph and use that just as an outline. In most essays with clear structures, this will create a coherent outline of your argument; if you do this and you don't get a good outline, that helps you figure out what to fix. The GRE favors essays with clear structures (sometimes overclear) so this should help. For example:

1) Society is comprised of numerous concepts such as theory, economy, arts, science, and the list goes on; however, these all boil down to one, people. 

2) New York is an exemplar of a big city since it is the biggest city in the world and is the financial hub.

3) When money flows through a city, the city begins to improve its infrastructure by investing more money.

4) Although cities such as New York bring in much wealth to the country, one can not neglect the fact that the rural industries contribute a huge sum as well. 

5) Cities are crucial because they allow wealth to be exchanged across the glove that affects the citizens of those associated countries immensely.

 

 

So, 4 is a good example of how the first sentence tells you what your paragraph is going to be about: here is a counterargument one could make (which you are going to then counter). 3, on the other hand, leaves a reader less clear how this relates to what cities tell us about a society.

 

Hope that helps!