Graduate Records Examinations®
Perspective on an Issue Topics
Best Ideas
Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
"The best ideas arise from a passionate interest in commonplace things."
Sample Essays Available
Declining Environment
Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
"Our declining environment may bring the people of the world together as no politician, philosopher, or war ever could. Environmental problems are global in scope and respect no nation's boundaries. Therefore, people are faced with the choice of unity and cooperation on the one hand or disunity and a common tragedy on the other."
Sample Essays Available
Duty of Educators
Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
"It is unfortunate that today's educators place so much emphasis on finding out what students want to include in the curriculum and then giving it to them. It is the educators' duty to determine the curriculum and the students' duty to study what is presented to them."
Sample Essays Available
Generalists vs. Specialists
Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
"In our time, specialists of all kinds are highly over-rated. We need more generalists--people who can provide broad perspectives."
Sample Essays Available
Higher Education
Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
"It is important for higher education to challenge established traditions and values."
Sample Essays Available
Media and Social Values
Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
"The media (books, film, music, television, for example) tend to create rather than reflect the values of a society."
Sample Essays Available
Technology and Loneliness
Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
"Both the development of technological tools and the uses to which humanity has put them have created modern civilizations in which loneliness is ever increasing."
Sample Essays Available
Wisdom
Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
" Wisdom is rightfully attributed not to people who know what to look for in life but to people who know what to ignore."
Sample Essays Available
Analyze An Argument Topics
Roller Skating
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument.
Hospital statistics regarding people who go to the emergency room after roller-skating accidents indicate the need for more protective equipment. Within this group of people, 75 percent of those who had accidents in streets or parking lots were not wearing any protective clothing (helmets, knee pads, etc.) or any light-reflecting material (clip-on lights, glow-in-the-dark wrist pads, etc.). Clearly, these statistics indicate that by investing in high-quality protective gear and reflective equipment, roller skaters will greatly reduce their risk of being severely injured in an accident.
Sample Essays Available
Scott Woods
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument.
The following appeared as a letter to the editor of a local newspaper.
"Five years ago, we residents of Morganton voted to keep the publicly owned piece of land known as Scott Woods in a natural, undeveloped state. Our thinking was that, if no shopping centers or houses were built there, Scott Woods would continue to benefit our community as a natural parkland. But now that our town planning committee wants to purchase the land and build a school there, we should reconsider this issue. If the land becomes a school site, no shopping centers or houses can be built there, and substantial acreage would probably be devoted to athletic fields. There would be no better use of land in our community than this, since a large majority of our children participate in sports, and Scott Woods would continue to benefit our community as a natural parkland."
Sample Essays Available
Silver Screen Movies
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument.
The following is taken from a memo from the advertising director of the Silver Screen Movie Production Company.
"According to a recent report from our marketing department, fewer people attended movies produced by Silver Screen during the past year than in any other year. And yet the percentage of generally favorable comments by movie reviewers about specific Silver Screen movies actually increased during this period. Clearly, the contents of these reviews are not reaching enough of our prospective viewers; so the problem lies not with the quality of our movies but with the public's lack of awareness that movies of good quality are available. Silver Screen should therefore spend more of its budget next year on reaching the public through advertising and less on producing new movies."
Sample Essays Available
Smile Bright
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument.
A recent survey of dental patients showed that people who use Smile-Bright toothpaste are most likely to have capped teeth---artificial but natural-looking protective coverings placed by dentists on individual teeth. Those people who had begun using Smile-Bright toothpaste early in life were more likely to have capped teeth than were people who had begun using Smile-Bright later in life. In addition, those who reported brushing their teeth more than twice a day with Smile-Bright toothpaste were more likely to have caps on their teeth than were those who reported brushing with Smile-Bright less frequently. Therefore, people wishing to avoid having their teeth capped should not use Smile-Bright toothpaste.
Sample Essays Available
Speed Limits in Forestville
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument.
"Six months ago the region of Forestville increased the speed limit for vehicles traveling on the region's highways by ten miles per hour. Since that change took effect, the number of automobile accidents in that region has increased by 15 percent. But the speed limit in Elmsford, a region neighboring Forestville, remained unchanged, and automobile accidents declined slightly during the same six-month period. Therefore, if the citizens of Forestville want to reduce the number of automobile accidents on the region's highways, they should campaign to reduce Forestville's speed limit to what it was before the increase."
Sample Essays Available
University of Claria
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument.
The University of Claria is generally considered one of the best universities in the world because of its instructors’ reputation, which is based primarily on the extensive research and publishing record of certain faculty members. In addition, several faculty members are internationally renowned as leaders in their fields. For example, many of the faculty from the English department are regularly invited to teach at universities in other countries. Furthermore, two recent graduates of the physics department have gone on to become candidates for the Nobel Prize in Physics. And 75 percent of the students are able to find employment after graduating. Therefore, because of the reputation of its faculty, the University of Claria should be the obvious choice for anyone seeking a quality education.
Sample Essays Available