The well-being of a society is enhanced when many of its people question authority.

Issue: "The well-being of a society is enhanced when many of its people question authority."

Before writing an essay, it's important to search your brain and come up with as many ideas as you can either pertaining or not pertaining to the topic. Try to search for ideas which are both for and against the topic. Your essay should encompass both sides of the coin. Given below are some keywords which I thought of the moment I read the above issue. It is important to do such activity as you can latter sieve off the keywords which are not important or you cannot explain about. Noting down some instances or examples is also beneficial.

My Keywords: Opposition, democracy, no group left out, tyrant, independence struggle, India, might break laws, arbitrary questioning, faith of people

Once you have done this brainstorming session, club the keywords which are similar and put these groups in a systematic order as you are going to explain in your essay.

Structure:

Positives: Independence struggle, faith of people, democracy, opposition parties, no group left out, tyranny prevented

Negatives: Might break laws, arbitrary questioning

Now you have a structure and slowly the mist is settling. Now you know what all you have to say in your essay. The above activities do not consume much time. In the 45 minutes that you have, these might take maximum 10 mins. Next is the main essay itself. Start your essay with the body first, rather than introduction. It is important to take a stance in your essay supported by examples. In the course of your writing the essay, you might realize that you have changed your stance altogether from the one you had in mind at the beginning. So, this would save you the agony of either changing your content or changing your introduction. This advantage, however, is available only in a word processor. If it's an essay on paper, you will have to be careful and write the introduction first. Get started with the body and type as if your life is at stake. Look at the structure and the keywords. Write everything that you have in your mind about the keywords one at a time. Try to divide the essay into paragraphs. The length of the paragraphs should be kept same, as this shows that you have given equal importance to every idea. Once you have rattled for a while, read whatever you have written. Look for grammatical mistakes and try to give coherence to your essay. To give coherence, try giving a line at the end of each paragraph pertaining to the next paragraph. After this perusal, write the introduction and conclusion. Introduction is like a teaser or a trailer. You present your essay so as to make it interesting and at the same time not giving all the information that is there in it. Try giving an apt quotation if you are lucky enough to have remembered one. Same goes with the conclusion. In the conclusion, give your stance and also show that you are aware of the flip side of your stance. This fetches a lot of marks. Given below is the final essay which I tried to come up with.

Main Essay:

Asking questions is fundamental and distinct feature found in humans. Questions bring out all the facets in a discussion, both positive and negative. Similarly for proper functioning of the society, questioning is important as it helps to give a say to the people. However, since different people have different opinions, questions which are raised just to disrupt the integrity of the society have to be curbed. The well-being of a society is depicted when its people have free will and a say in its functioning. For this it is important that those at its helm give opportunity to the people to put forth their arguments. Once this right is thwarted, the society inches towards tyranny. This had been the main feature in imperialism. The colonized were not allowed to question the wrong doings done upon them. Thus, the freedom struggle involved freedom fighters opposing the functioning of the colonizer either by violence or non-violence. For instance, in India, Mahatma Gandhi decided to go against the British rule by non-violent disobedience. The result was the realization of atrocities committed on Indians by the British and finally independence. Hence, questioning the authority helps in keeping a check on it.

Even in the current scenario, successful governments are the ones which are for the people and by the people. Democracies have opposition parties which try to reign in the party at power by bringing forward the follies and poor policies. Minorities in the country are able to come in the main stream by bringing out the short comings of the government in their case. Proper functioning occurs as the authorities are able to check their mistakes and avoid self-interests of the people at helm. During the contesting of elections, each party tries to belittle each other's achievements and in turn helping the people to take a correct decision on who would come in power. For instance, in USA, Democrats and Republicans choose presidential candidates amongst themselves, which involves laying out each other's propaganda and giving a comparison with the other candidates. Once presidential nominees are selected final elections are contested for the president's office. This rigorous process helps people to get a clear picture and a sense of confidence in the candidate elected.

Questioning can however be used for petty interests too. Just to thwart the functioning of the government, arbitrary opposition to every policy might instigate people against the government. The opposition parties in a democracy, just to get in power, might condemn the ruling party on its every genuine achievement. Such kind of unhealthy questioning would create a bad image of an otherwise honest government and thus lead to its downfall. For instance, in India, the communist party tries to hog limelight by coming up with arbitrary issues opposing the government and concocts a pro-people image for itself. This becomes an obstacle in the smooth functioning of the government.

Tyranny of any sort is heinous but a little discipline is a must for proper functioning of authority. In case of a government in a country, police maintains discipline amongst citizens. Different people have different opinions and all might not be in favor of the society. It is the role of the police to curb such disturbing elements of the society. Similarly in schools and colleges, students are allowed to question the authority to a limit where they do not harm the integrity of the latter. In the veil of questioning the authority, hunger strikes and violence instigated due to petty reasons lead to the disruption of atmosphere.

Thus, I would agree with the issue that question is important to the proper functioning of society in so far it is done in a healthy way. Questioning should be there as it leads to the hearing of public opinion but as these opinions are varied in nature, some of them have to be curbed for the smooth functioning of the society.

Lets get it done

What is this?
Salutations to all . Let me introduce myself. I'm Vaibhav Gupta, B.Tech Civil Engineering IIT Delhi, planning to join Manhattan Associates, Bangalore. People of my age generally dislike books and would never want to pursue something which doesn't give them pay right away. So for all those braves, iconoclast students, who wish to take a plunge into the research world, here I'm starting a blog which would, if possible, help them in one of the most dreaded sections of GRE, Analytical Writing Analysis (AWA).

Why do they bother?
Good question under the circumstance when we have been tortured and abused by the never ending GRE wordlist. Well, GRE is not an English test, we have TOEFL for that. What it really tries to measure is your analytical skills and logic. Writing helps to assess the candidate's expression. If you are logical enough, you would provide good content and a neat structure to your essay. Well, writing comes naturally to some and to the less fortunate ones it becomes a burden. However, GRE examiners are not looking for the future Shakespear or Wordsworth, good content and simple language would fetch you more marks as compared to banality adorned with gobbledygooks.

SOS!! Save Our Scores
So what can be done to get that right essay which would give us a terrific score, making us eligible for some of the elite universities. Well, if you are good at writing try to develop your content by doing loads of reading. Try to take notice of examples in your day to day lives which you can use in your essays. Parallel to this try writing an issue daily. Initially it would look troublesome and frustrating. But don't loose heart, it won't take time to catch the nerve. And once you crack the code it would give you confidence and who knows you might also develop an interest for writing, just like me. For those who have never written anything ever, go into hibernation and do extensive reading. Try looking at how articles are written in a newspaper or magazine. They generally have a common structure, like introduction, body supported by examples, and final conclusion. Then give writing a shot. Read a novel and try writting its review. A novel sounds cumbersome, read an article and then write its summary. Just going blank faced in the final exam would be suicidal.

When to start the engine?
It depends on the kind of importance you give to AWA and also your level of friendship with English. If you are aiming at elite universities,which you should, well buckle your seat belts and turn on the ignition a good 2-3 months before your GRE, even for those who consider English as their buddies.

Some external forces?
There are several books but the one which I like is ARCO GRE CAT Answers to the Real Essay Questions. It's a must have as it provides the basic structure of any essay and also some cool fallacies pertaining to arguments. The content of the essays is too perfect to simulate in GRE, and a comparison with yours might make you feel dejected.

What thou art for?
Well, as a philanthropist, I would take the onus of publishing one issue and an argument daily and also some links wherein you can find the contents pertaining to that essay.

Is this prejudicial?
Even if you are not a GRE student, enjoy the articles and post your comments. A healthy discussion is always beneficial in venting one's opinion.