14526 scandals
20130504 Essay Topic
GRE Issue: Scandals
Example Essay by Jeenn Lee Hsieh
ielts360toefl@hotmail.com
猫头鹰在线写作实验室 谢振礼
TOEFL-style Essay Question (GRE ISSUE):
Claim>
Topic>"Scandals are useful because they focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could."
Topic>Present your perspective on the issue below. "Scandals--whether in politics, academia, or other areas--are useful. They focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could."
Task>
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.
TWE Essay>3/6/6/3 (new format : 30 minutes over 300 words)
>introduction: 3 sentences
In politics as in other areas, a shocking scandal usually speaks for itself, calling for drastic reform. Generally speaking, any scandal in whatever area cannot do its job unless journalists would decide that the situation is indeed a scandal. It can be argued that scandals are useful because they could vividly demonstrate what new reforms are needed and create political conditions to get them done, in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could.
>body A: 6 sentences
The road from scandals to reforms is through gossip, and the media can provide us with that kind of stuff for the gossip world. We like to talk about news related to illegal or immoral behaviors or other wrongdoings that certain persons in the high places have done or are believed to have done. A publicized event in politics, for example, could attract public attention as we get involved by making our angry voices heard, trying to bring about disgrace and dishonor leading to reforms. Usually, whenever a major scandal breaks, the media--newspapers, magazines, radio and television outlets, the Internet--may be busy making breaking news that step-by-step disclose the real characters of important persons and damage their reputation. By using scandals, the media would speak loudly, pointing out where reform is needed and could help to bring it about. What is required is a spark, something so outrageous that the scandal becomes overwhelming and reform follows.
>body B: 6 sentences
Nevertheless, it is questionable whether or not too much attention being paid to scandals is a positive development. To begin with, there are times when scandals are simply malicious talks about the private lives of important political persons, and the problems disclosed can lead to damage to their reputation, with no reference to reforms. The media, in order to attract and impress a wider audience, might intentionally report a would-be scandal based on true or false allegations or a mixture of both. So, even if those allegations were mostly false, an unfortunate VIP in politics would be in for disgrace and dishonor, from which no reform could ever happen. Probably, there are risks of the gossip world in which it is believed that if everybody says it, what everybody says must be true. It is feared that the scandal culture might go to such an extreme that half the world takes pleasure in inventing scandals and the the other half in believing.
>conclusion: 3 sentences
Thanks to the media, scandals become useful because they focus our attention on problems that lead to the need to reform. This is particularly true when voices crying for reforms are not loud enough and when much-needed reforms are not at sight. Of course, it is up to journalists to decide what is indeed a scandal that is expected to lead to reform.
(TOEFL-GRE Essay by Jeenn Lee Hsieh 谢振礼老师 ielts360toefl@hotmail.com pigai zuowen)
GRE Issue Essay>4/8/8/4 (old format: 45 minutes over 450 words) by Jeenn Lee Hsieh ielts360toefl@hotmail.com
In politics as in other areas, a shocking scandal usually speaks for itself, calling for drastic reform. Generally speaking, any scandal in whatever area could not do its job unless journalists would decide that the situation might be, indeed, a scandal. To be sure, before the days of the mass media, what we would regard as gross corruption and abuse of power in all political levels was simply business as usual, but it could now become a scandal that would reach a much wider audience than a most extraordinary speaker. What is needed is a spark, something so outrageous that the scandal becomes overwhelming and reform follows. Hence, it can be argued that scandals are useful for they could vividly demonstrate what new reforms are needed and create political conditions to get them done, in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could.
The road from scandals to reforms is through gossip. Since to gossip is human, we like to talk about news related to illegal or immoral behaviors or other wrongdoings that certain persons in the high places have done (or are believed to have done). A publicized event in politics, for example, could attract public attention as we get involved by making our angry voices heard, trying to bring about disgrace and dishonor leading to reforms. Usually, whenever a major scandal breaks, the media--newspapers, magazines, radio and television outlets, the Internet--may be busy in making breaking news from day to day that would step-by-step disclose the real characters of important persons and thus damage their reputation. By using scandals, the media would speak loudly, pointing out where reform is needed and could dramatically help bring it about. All this means that in a world of gossips, journalists may act as if they were speakers or reformers, in ways even more effectively and powerfully because nothing moves more quickly than "winged" scandals. Once in a while an event has happened, on which a speaker might find it difficult to speak and on which a reformer might find it impossible to be silent, there would be the media to step in and to do the trick. At this point, a single stick of match could put the entire forest on fire.
Nevertheless, is revealing a scandal always a positive development? There are times when gossips are no more than malicious talks about the private lives of important people in politics, probably having nothing to do with any reform. Without the idea of reform in mind, does it matter if a scandal is based on true or false allegation or a mixture of both? Could it be that, because everybody says it, what everybody says must be true? It might be that half the world takes pleasure in inventing scandals while the other half in believing. Besides, is the media fair with all the people? For instance, a bank clerk cheating on his wife is no big news, but a president of the United States doing so with a White House intern, resulted in the biggest sex scandal in American history. The lesson seems clear: it is the public scandal that causes general public outrage, and that, for ordinary folks like us, to sin in secret is no sin at all, for "there are no girls gone wrong, only bad girls found out"--to use words from Mae West.
To sum up, scandals in politics can be more useful to cause reforms to happen than can a speaker or a reformer. What matters is the way the media are doing the job for the sake of reform. In non-political areas , case by case, scandals ranging in category from sex to drugs are not always speaking for reforms, though. Interestingly enough, instead of being shamed, some famous people could actually make a profit from being scandalized. There are celebrities (for example, in Hollywood), who, when they cease to shock us with scandals, cease to interest us. (GRE Issue Essay by Jeenn Lee Hsieh ielts360toefl@hotmail.com pigai zuowen)
