GRE Writing Help :D

[adauketano]

Hi! My name is Jaime. I'm from Spain and actually seeking to apply to several Communication MA programs in the US. I've been working through the GRE quant and vocab sections, and now focusing more on the writing ones. I have seen that most people post their texts to be corrected, but we are all really busy with our own studying to correct so many! So rather that asking y'all for an in-depth revision, I'd like just some tips on what I could improve to boost my grade (yeah, I'm that pollyannaish!). I am also pretty good at the Quant Section so if you need help with that, we could do some kind of exchange. I am a non-native, so I guess I cannot get as good as natives, but I'm trying  

 

Scandals are useful because they focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position

 

1As much as I agree with the statment, there are several aspects worth considering: first, the span of the word “scandal,” the characteristics of the action it triggers, and the requierements for such action to solidify into something lasting.

 

2Before discussing the role scandals play in our contemporary society, we have to define or, at least, attempt to define the idea of scandal. Only then can we turly maintain to what extent scandals prove more engaging or effective than other ways of communication or activism. 

 

3Throughout history, there have been many events that have been treated as “scandals:” from Nixon’s watergate, to the remiss actions of the US Government to prevent the 9/11 attacks, to Caytlin Jenner’s transtion. These, however, would fit under an educated narrowing of the term “scandal.” A more beginthed definition could surely include the Kardashian’s last romance, or the disgrace of a former beauty pageant Queen. This more “popular” circumscribing turns out to be much more problematic in analyzing the statement above. I will first argue that only the “narrow” scandals (those that have to do with corruption, crime, or iconoclasy) endure enough to become part of history. The rest, the wider narratives, tend to be soon forgotten. Therefore, I will only use the former kind for my analysis. 

 

4Having limited the number and characteristics of the term “scandal,” I can now argue that I do belive scandals can provoke certain reactions in the public that speakers or reformers cannot. 9/11 proved much more decisive in determining the invasion of Iraq than any speech by the President could have been (albeit, we could say it was used by the President, yet that would be much more complex). In a similar way, the AIDS crisis and the lack of reaction by Nixon’s Administration eventually led to the congealing of a gay community that has endured ever since. The murder of Dr. King is said by many to have cathalyzed the Civil Rights movement into accion in ways that Dr. King alive could have never achieved. 

 

5However, I do believe that there is a certain naivety when in assuming pollyannaishly the power of scandals. Scandals are, by definiton, short-lived. Nothing in the press, where scandals are truly conceived, can last long, because the “news-value” of a scandal lies in it’s novelty. Therefore, although - as I mentioned - I agree with the statment that scandals can harange people into action in unique ways, I am more chary in the consideration of these ways. 

 

6Scandals create a sense of urgency oblique to chaos and madness. An inmense thirst for action. Just recall the demands for action hours after 9/11 or the widespread riots after the assassination of Dr. King. Scandals, therefore, can perfectly harange people into action,; yet such action is not organized not foreseeable. The death of Harvey Milk alone did not trigger the Gay revolution. It was the concatenation of a vast numbers of “scandals” that eventually allowed a generation to accumulate enough knowledge and power to plan ahead, to establish blueprints for the movements. A last consideration, nonetheless, is that “scandals”, in their urgency, do serve very much as cathalysers of the movements, they are the last drop, breaking the suface-tension of the liquid, that allows for the water to break free out of the glass. 

This paralell requierements for scandals to truly create change are what allows many to maintain that more traditional (“less scandalous”) activism is much more productive and safe. 

 

7However, scandals - in their narrow definition - do “focus our attention … in ways that” nothing else can; albeit such ways are of unconmensurable feebleness and urgency; and only if a group of men or women with enough experience, resourses, and prescience takes advantage of the “scandal” can this become a “last drop,” rather than becoming “just a fogotten drop.” Taking all these dimensions into account, I do maintain that “scandals” are not only different than speakers, but can certainly be more effective. 

 

This is the issue task. I have numbered the paragraph in case that kind of helps Thanks! 

 

(BTW, i will be trying to answer questions and all that soon, I just signed up!)