gre issue essay

[dicapino]

Educators should teach facts only after their students have studied the ideas, trends, and concepts that help explain those facts.

 

The formal education system tends to make facts more important than the ideas and concepts that make up these facts. Educators should make sure students study ideas and thoughts that explain facts before teaching them these facts. The reasons for this view are: first, students will have a better understanding of facts; also, it will help improve their critical and cognitive reasoning skills.

 

 

First and foremost, students will have a better understanding of facts. As students are introduced to the concepts of these facts, they are exposed to have a wide perspective of what these facts actually mean; thus, they do not accept facts passively. Introducing students to facts encourages rote memorization, and some students may not be interested in knowing the ideas and thoughts that explain these facts. For example, when introducing students to a concept like gravity, giving students examples of the effects of gravity like a fruit falling from a tree or throwing an object upward will give students a lucid picture of gravity.

 

 

 

Furthermore, students’ critical and cognitive reasoning skills are developed. Through this form of learning students acquire skills of developing thoughts on different facts or knowledge they come across. Also, they are able to question and seek more knowledge about facts they encounter outside school. In addition students acquire skills of problem solving. For instance, a math student who has been given a wide view of a particular problem, will surely be able to see different methods or route to the solution.

 

 

Although teaching facts may be important for students during their nascent education, for example teaching students times table and a myriad of spellings. Facts should not be taught in higher classes , where students should learn how to think, without first going through the concepts with them,

 

 

In summary, teaching concepts and ideas before facts will give students better understanding of facts, and critical thinking skills. Teaching only facts to student will stymie their academic and learning development.

[SocGirl2013]

I know very little about how this works to be completely honest, and I barely glanced over a sample or 2 before taking my GRE but somehow managed a 5.0 so I will try to give you some feedback, take it with a grain of salt.

 

First of all, write more. Your set up is ideal for this kind of a robotic grading system - you have your intro/concl/body. Perfect. But I'd say this is still pretty skeletal with lots of room to fill some "meat". I don't know how much of a myth this is, but if you haven't heard this before already, the essays that earn the highest points are the longest too. I wrote a LOT (over 500 words) for mine without breaking anything down at first, but I had practise writing a lot really fast from my creative writing classes. If you struggle with this then you can set it up (as you have now) and go back and fill in!

 

Second, try to go for more specific examples. If you can't think of any (I personally had trouble with this given the stress of the GRE), make up data (no really, I am serious, I did this) that sounds inherently plausible but noone is going to look it up to make sure you were right to the 15th decimal point. Like to enhance this: "For example, when introducing students to a concept like gravity, giving students examples of the effects of gravity like a fruit falling from a tree or throwing an object upward will give students a lucid picture of gravity." You could add something like "Study shows that teaching methods involving visuals and real-life simulations are more effective teaching tools than rote memorization about 70% of the times." They can't challenge this because you haven't mentioned what study and where (it could be based on a sample of 5 students in Arkansas or based on a national survey for all they know), and the numbers are entirely plausible. This gives your argument some solid support. Give every body paragraph a backbone!

 

Third, your conclusion, while good enough when pressed for time (assuming you've written plenty earlier on in the body paragraphs) could be stronger. Another sentence or two that's recapitulating your ideas but also shedding some new light into the issue could be helpful. Maybe even end with a short aphorism if you can cook one up - try to end with a bang!

 

As it is right now I'd give this essay a 3.5-4 (not me personally, but if I was grading from the mindset of an ETS grader) and you can easily bring that up to a 5 considering it is very well written.

 

Hope this helps!