After reading through the model essays on GRE official websites, I felt ever pressure. According to the BARRON'S HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE GRE, fluency, organization and technical English are three utmost important factors for GRE writing. However, for those Asian students like me, writing in idiomatic and grammatically correct compositions is really challenging. For example, most of those Japanese students study English word by word other than sentence by sentence, forming habitual mistakes in word matching in a Japanese way, thus it is quite common that nobody else but the Japanese could understand the whole composition. In this situation, a fixed phrase might be toughly torn out. Then here comes the question: how could an non-native English speaker improve his writing skills?

A generally advised method is to practice writing on and on. Imagine that one had no sense of his mistakes, how could others expect his correction by continually practice? It just applies to the English writing for oriental students. Forming solid mistakes and having no sense of them, they generally get lower mark than the Americans in GRE Analytical Writing, even though they have devoted much of their time practicing for GRE.

There is no exception for me as a Chinese. In April, I am to take AW test. But now I have little confidence to get an ideal score though I have practiced writing for months. Is there any native American available to help me correct the idiomatic mistakes in my compositions? Thank you.

Here are two samples of my essays. Thanks for your concern, and I will so appreciate your modification.

TOPIC: The following appeared as a letter to the editor of a national newspaper.

"Your recent article on corporate downsizing* in the United States is misleading. The article gives the mistaken impression that many competent workers who lost jobs as a result of downsizing face serious economic hardship, often for years, before finding other suitable employment. But this impression is contradicted by a recent report on the United States economy, which found that since 1992 far more jobs have been created than have been eliminated. The report also demonstrates that many of those who lost their jobs have found new employment. Two-thirds of the newly created jobs have been in industries that tend to pay above-average wages, and the vast majority of these jobs are full-time."

*Downsizing is the process in which corporations deliberately reduce the number of their employees.
WORDS: 415 TIME: 00:30:00 DATE: 2008-4-5 11:09:50

In the letter, the author disagrees with the editor of a national newspaper who composed an article giving the readers a misleading impression that the nationwide corporate downsizing results in the enduring financial challenges for those having lost their jobs in the process. To support his disagreement, he cites a reconomy report which shows an increase of jobs since 1992, and indicates that many have found new jobs after unemployment. He also cites that two-thirds of the new jobs are full-time ones and provide above-average salaries. However, with scutiny on the process of his analysis, one can easily find it unconvincing as it stands.

First of all, the author unfairly assume that most capable workers who have lost their jobs in the corporate downsizing find new jobs again due to an general increase of job vacancies. Consider a printer A who was more skillful in manual printing in 1970's than the rest of the industry. With the development of newly introduced printing technologies, fewer manual printing operator are needed than before, though the printing industry is booming at the present, offering ever more job chances for competetors. How could A find his ideal job merely with his out-of-date skills in the newly formed printing industry? Perhaps those newly created jobs call for newly skills and technologies while most of those losing their jobs lack. Or perhaps the newly offered jobs include most manual jobs, saying, city engineers, newspaper distributors, which the experienced competent workers who lost their jobs are not willing to choose. Either of the explanations can give us an alternative for the possible situation.

Even if most of competent workers find their jobs again from the newly created vacancies, no evidence shows they are among the two thirds who receive higher wages than avarage. Though the avarage wages for the newly created jobs have been in the industries offering higher salaries, we cannot get detailed information about how much those people who have lost their jobs get as an average. It is entirely possible that those industries call for initiatives and innovations which are more suitable for the young, not for the elder experienced workers. For this reason, we can fully believe that the experienced people cannot get so high wages.

In sum, the author fails to convince me with the merely general data, lacking detailed analysis of the making-up of those newly jobs. Besides, he also needs to provide more protrait of the avarage salaries they get after finding the new jobs.


TOPIC: "There are two typesof laws: just and unjust. Every individual in a society has a responsibility toobey just laws and, even more importantly, to disobey and resist unjustlaws."
WORDS: 627 TIME: 00:43:00 DATE: 2008-4-5 11:59:54

A recent heatedly discussion involves in the fairness of laws: just and unjust. Everyone will encounter a vital problemis to what extent a law can be regarded as just or unjust. Without a clear judgment of the justice of laws, no one could make any conclusion about whether we should obey or disobey a law. In fact, in my pint of view, the laws,including its set-up and implementation, will definitely go forward into a more scientific and democratic direction, though the dispute of the justice and obeyance will exist in a long time.

When it comes to the justice of laws, I have not seen a absolutely authentic judgment about it. Why, you may wonder,are there not any widely accepted instructions about the justice of laws so far, though quantities of debates have come up? The reason is simple that there is no unified standard like ISO9002, a quality standard. Consider the Marriage Law in China which restricts the rights of wives and husbands. In the wealth part, it commands the husband-and -wife share all the incomes they get after legal marriage, as well as expenses. However a practical question comes out:generally the husband earns more salaries per month than his wife does in China,it might be "unfair" for him to share half of the incomes with his wife when they get divorced. But for a wife, he might deem it to be"just" for women should be protected due to their innate disadvantages, and the society does protect them in many fields. In this case,no one could draw a conclusion about the justice convincing to all about this part of the Marriage Law. It is the same with many other laws all over the world. No single standard can we rely on to get a general judgment about justice of laws.

Since we have not got an unified standard about the justice of laws, harsh decision of obeyance or disobayance will definitely cause disorders in the whole society. Can you imagine a scenario which the printing companies disobey the Environment Protecting Law for its negative impact on the profits and keeps pulling water with poisons directly into rivers, whereas an environmentalist, who advocates highly on protecting endangered species near the severely polluted printing company calls for punishment on the company? It is hard to image the consequence if it did happen in our society.Obviously such a contradict on related laws will cause severe social problems,even catastrophe, not only limited in a certain field but widely spread in the related chain.

From the foregoing analysis, there are quite a lot of problems on law set-up and implementations to be solved if we want to live better in a democratic society. The first and fundamental problem springs from the set-up of a law. Before a law is publicly announced and valid,the authorities should consider carefully about whether a draw-up a law can suit for the contemporary situations, how to avoid potential contradicts among related laws, whether a law can sustain its role in the long run. Only in this way can we prevent potential disputes to a larger degree.

On the other hand, whether a law can be implemented efficiently is also a critical challenge on the issue. Police and army forces should take their responsibilities when a disobeyance truly happens. And only complete and no bureaucracy on the implementations on disobeyscan entitle the rights of those who strictly obey the laws.

To sum up, before we can not judge whether a law is just or not, no conclusion about the abeyance can be convincingly made. Only under the scientific set-up of a law by the authorities and justimplementations by the forces can people's rights be protected.

This post has been edited by icemath: Apr 6 2008, 01:42 AM

I believe reading will help you in analytical writing. If you have no ideas on what to write about, you will not be able to write a good analytical essay, no matter how good your writing skills are. Reading also helps you to learn how others organize their ideas and writings, and this will help you in your organizational skills in analytical writing.

Reading news articles online and newspapers will help you learn more about society and current affairs, not to mention, the English is of a good standard. A lot of news papers also have analytical articles and reviews by editors and journalists, which will make good model essays from you to learn from.

This post has been edited by bishoujo: Mar 30 2008, 12:36 PM

Thanks for your patient reply. As instructed from the above, I have been browsing news on WSJ online, CNN, NYTimes and Scientific American. But now the problem is there might be a lot of hidden habitual mistakes in my prerequisite, other than I have not sufficient materials to write about. Should there be a native American helping me modify such mistakes, I will be so grateful. By the way, I am to take the GRE writing test early April, not more than two weeks left to promote my writing. Any volunteer to modify my compositions?