In my previous post, I jokingly offered you a "GRE-style" Analytical Writing essay topic. Here's a better example of what such a task actually looks like. This comes from my Kaplan manual (Kaplan New GRE Verbal Workbook, 7th Edition; New York: Kaplan, Inc., 2011), and I can vouch that this example conforms to what you'd see on the actual GRE:
The following is a letter to the editor of a psychology journal:
The data collected from a variety of studies now suggest a relationship between the medicine Hypathia and the heightened risk of anxiety in patients afflicted with bipolar disorder. In 1950, before Hypathia was widely used to treat bipolar disorder, relatively few patients were diagnosed as anxious or had symptoms that suggested anxiety. However, in five studies published between 2005 and 2010, more than 60 percent of the subjects with bipolar disorder who took Hypathia demonstrated symptoms of anxiety or reported having episodes of heightened anxiety.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more viable alternatives to the proposed explanation. Justify, with support, why your explanation could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
If you're really a nerd, take 30 minutes and write a full response to this in the comments, but beware the 4096-character limit: you may need to post your essay in two parts. Not having been trained in how to evaluate such essays, I can't give you an accurate score, but instead of scoring you, I'll be curious to see how you and others approach the writing topic. If you don't want to write a full essay, I'll be happy to see a list of the fallacies you've detected in the prompt, and a sketch of your alternative explanations. (This type of essay isn't merely about finding flaws; it's also about repairing them.)
UPDATE: I treat this particular question in much greater detail at my tutoring blog-- here.
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The problem is the name of this medicine.
ReplyDeleteHypathia is obviously a scary drug in need of better PR. Change the name to something that doesn't sound like "high pathology" -- or worse, like "Hi Pathology!" Too much like a greeting that says, "Disease, come and get me!"
Or maybe Americans are just cowardly these days. In that case, the name is still the problem, though PR won't help, but Americans could be toughened up. I suggest "Re-Boot Camp," military camp to revive American bravery. We have to live up to our National Anthem! Home of the Brave!
Remember the days of "Duck in Cover"? Americans had guts back then and weren't afraid of nuclear war. A blanket with a duck in it was enough to survive. The blanket against radiation, the duck for roasting -- just slip it out into all that radiation and let the fallout microwave that sucker!
With sufficient guts, Americans wouldn't suffer from bipolar disorder, either. They'd stay true to their old, conservative principles and not be oscillating back and forth from conservative to liberal to conservative to liberal in neverending game of "s/he loves me, s/he loves me not"! That's the fault of the 60s flower children!
I could go on and on, but I've proved my point and expect and A+ even though the gutless graders will probably give me a C, the cowardly bastards! But I'm tough enough to take it.
Jeffery Hodges
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Okay, I made one error: "expect and A+." That should read "expect an A+."
ReplyDeleteGive me an A instead . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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Make it an A-! I wrote "in neverending game" instead of "in a neverending game."
ReplyDeleteJeffery Hodges
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The urge to joke and the tendency toward perfectionism are uneasy bedfellows.
ReplyDeleteJoke? What joke? I wrote a serious analysis of American decline!
ReplyDeleteAs I'd laughed so hard I'd wet my own bed . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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