GRE Analyze an issue is a task which tests your critical thinking skills on a common topic. In GRE Analyze an issue essay on an issue you need to write around 500-600 words. The common topics are of general interest which can be discussed from various perspectives.

Go through the GRE practice papers for further more practice.

Topic:

In any field of endeavor, it is impossible to make a significant contribution

without first being strongly influenced by past achievements in that field.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.

Sample Answer

Model 1

Often, previous achievements may have a deep impact and significant contributions based on the experiments undertaken or theories claimed by harbingers. This conception makes sense to some degree, however, it does not justify a definite correlation. To identify whether past achievements are required for any significant contribution, we need to go through deep investigation on past achievements functions.

Past achievements sometimes serve as cornerstones to new accomplishments. With the support of the experimental data or documents written by the virtuosos, people nowadays can save a lot of time on the complicated Classic Mechanics analysis or the perplexed Chemical.

Although past achievements can be recognized as a guide, we can not assert their effects to be as strong as the speaker mentioned in the claim. According to The Butterfly Effect, a small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. Sometimes contributions take place only because of a haphazard incident or inspiration.

We may consider past achievements as a double-edged Sword. Excellent as an inspiration and illuminating many new conceptions, it sometimes diminishes people’s creativity as well. Old conceptions or theories will easily fall into frames and then constrain people's attitudes, once people get accustomed to the previous "axioms"; their thoughts become rigid, blocking them to search solutions out of the system. In some cases, if we want to make progress, creativity thinking is the basic requirement.

It is inappropriate to overestimate the importance of past achievements to new contributions. Previous achievements play a crucial role in the development of significant contributions. Hence being a creative mind and living life to the fullest.

Model 2

Everyone aspires to achieve great goals in their life. Whenever you're thinking of achieving great heights you need someone to look up to for inspiration. They inspire our day to day lives. It can be possible that when someone aspires to do something remarkable in life he gets influenced by someone’s past achievements. I believe it to be extremely logical to get inspired by the past achievements of people in order to create something new and better.

Inspiration keeps a person going and life without inspiration would be colorless. Inspiration of any sort makes a person do things which they never thought. If singing artists of today were not inspired by the singing artists of older days they would not be able to create such different and unique melodies. Inspiration lays the foundation for creation of something new. The achievements of the past are the foundation of our present knowledge. Past achievements are like the roots of a tree, that helps you prosper. Past achievements work as a learning which could yield outstanding results in the respective fields of research.

Getting inspired from past achievements certainly does not diminish an individual's creativity.. Educating from past achievements does not mean that innovation is lost; rather innovation is triggered and a better outcome can be achieved.

But there are people who have done remarkably well on their own without getting inspired by anyone. Such people make a stand and recognition of their own and without the influence of anybody. They become inspiration for other people. Inspiration from past achievements ensures creating something new and unusual.

Therefore, we must look upon our great achievers from the past with due respect and get inspired but we should not get so influenced that our work has the traces of their work. We must have an individuality of our own. Whatever we create from any inspiration should contain an imprint of our individuality and it signifies our own style.