The GRE Issue task evaluates candidates' ability to analyze critically the given topic of general interest and to precisely communicate their thoughts about it in writing. This particular GRE issue sample essay focuses on how it is important to make important decisions at right time. There is a wide range of similar topics available for candidates in GRE writing practice papers.

Topic: Make Important Decisions

Claim: Knowing about the past cannot help people to make important decisions today.

You need to write a response discussing the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim and the reason on which that claim is based.

Strategies

You need to combine the claim and the reason into one statement by referring to a subordinate clause.

In other words:

Since the world today has become more complex than it was even in the relatively recent past, understanding the past will not help people to make important decisions today.

Assumptions stated or implied the claim and reason:

• People can’t use their own or others' past experiences in making decisions today.
• The complexity of today's world makes past events and/or actions meaningless while making decisions today.
• The complexity of today's society contributes to the difficulty of making decisions.

Opposing viewpoint:

Knowing the past can help people make better decisions today.

• Reason: The complexities faced by people in today's world are not more challenging as compared to the ones faced by people earlier.

Assumptions to it:

• The past can inform the present.
• Each time becomes more complex as compared to the preceding.
• The degree of complexity is relative.

Today the world has changed completely from the past and has become more complex than ever before, but people's needs and motivations have not changed. People make decisions that can prove beneficial for them in the future. According to Maslow's Needs Hierarchy, all people desire the same things. First of all, they want their physiological needs to be completed. They need food, water, sex, and sleep. People want to feel loved and safe. They desire self-esteem and the respect of others is important. The majority of people make decisions satisfying their needs, and they make use of their own or others’ experiences to help them.

But the lack of change refutes the claim, in that it shows that the past is important to make better and more enhanced decisions even with the fast pace of our current world because history and the things that happened in the past can prove beneficial in making better and more accurate decisions based on similar past situations.

Also, Check:

My grandparents are in their late eighties; they came into this world in the 1920s. In the eighty-plus years since their births, they have seen many significant changes occurring in virtually every aspect of life. They have seen the advancement in commercial flight, construction of the interstate highway system, the invention of television, the existence of computers in twenty-first-century living, and many changes in society. The initial challenges they faced occurred when they were small at the time of the Great Depression and used their experiences to inform most of the decisions they have made throughout their lives.

Dealing with the financial struggles in the childhood era, they know that they must not waste anything. My grandmother always saves things and even reuses many products. Whether the economy was growing or not, they still managed to save something only because of the past experiences that have provided them many useful lessons to survive and thrive. The complexity of today's world has very little or no impact on the lives of people who know how to survive challenges.

They make better and more accurate decisions based on their needs and habits. Another instance showing that experience helped a lot in making better and more accurate decisions. President Obama faced some difficult choices concerning Syria's use of chemical weapons against its citizens. He has tempered his first instinct to begin an airstrike by releasing how Americans will feel regarding another conflict. When President George W. Bush reacted to the terrorist attack of 9/11/01 by sending troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, he got the maximum support from the Americans. Twelve years later, Americans were wary of these wars and most of them were not in favor of any more military action. Based on the twelve-year history of American troops in the Middle East, the President announced an airstrike and was awaiting results of Russia's offer to help Syria in disposing of its chemical weapons. Because the world is more complex, President Obama must keep in mind America’s recent past before taking any decision that can have far-reaching effects. Calling an airstrike might cause retaliation against American troops abroad and the main concern was the safety of Americans, and he uses his knowledge of the past to inform his decisions.

The inherent complexity of living in today's world creates more complexity while making better decisions. However, it does not preclude referring to the past each time for making decisions. Though the world has changed, its residents have the same needs as those in decades and centuries past, making the criteria for choosing a course of action similar to any in history.