A person should be very careful when making a decision - think carefully before any judgement

It was timed; written in 30 minutes.

The prompt:

People who make decisions based on emotion and justify those decisions with logic afterwards are poor decision makers.

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.

The response:

A simple decision can change a person's life completely. The decision can affect any area of the person's activities: education, career, relationship etc. Regardless of the area the decision can make the corresponding facet of life go wrong, or it can make the person achieve something outstanding sometime in the course of the person's life as well. That's why, a person should be very careful when making a decision. If he/she makes the decision based on emotion only, there is a high probability that the decision would be a wrong one; thus making him/her a poor decision maker. Although making decision merely on emotion can be a bad practice, emotion together with bits of prior calculation and logical reasoning can prove the best way of making decision sometime.

First, consider a martinet principal of a college in conflict with a disobedient student. A young student - a fledgling one - could be immature enough to rebel against a well established custom of that college. If, for example, the principle banish the student from college out of fury, the student's educational as well as career might be in a great risk of failure. The principal, in this scenario, have lots of ways to justify his/her decision such as protecting customs of the college etc but reasoning would not do any good in saving the student's educational life. In such cases, which are not very rare in conventional, orthodox colleges, merely the emotion should not be the drive in making important decisions.

Second, think about some cases in our personal life. The conjugal life goes through upheavals for many couple. There might be bitter fight between them. Now, if a couple - during such a fight - decides to divorce, it may cast a danger in their child's mental growth and social activities. The couple might show lots of reasons after getting divorced. Not those reasons but only a few considerations before making a decision to get divorced could help their child in many aspects of it's life. The couple - in this case - is no doubt, a poor decision maker.

Third, consider the claim for national issues. Candidates say many good stuffs before the election. Now, if a voter is convinced with the candidate's ostensible claims making their life better, and out of the emotional influx, the voters vote for the candidate, it can bring a dismal future for the country when the claims by the candidate would prove false. So, the voters should be very careful before making a decision about who to vote. They should not be overwhelmed by emotion.

As a decision can change a person's life it must be made very carefully. Merely the emotion as a drive for making a decision and then justifying the decision will bring a catastrophe in a person's life.

I think your essay is fluent! But you might get too many examples about the topic so you forget to explain your reasoning for the position you take. I've only seen three consequences of the poor decision makers bit I didn't see why you agree with the topic statement.

For example, people who involve emotions in decision-making are poor decision makers because
1. They usually don'y think about the consequences.
2. They lack the ability of self-control.
I think you should point out this observations first and then you give example. It will be much stronger.

If one makes decisions based on emotions, there would be a higher probability that he or she may not consider the right reasons for such decision making. Therefore such decisions have a higher tendency to be proven wrong.


.... certain sections sound a bit repetitive.... I wish you shortened this line.
You need to post GRE essays into Writing Feedback forum

Thanks alice0209! And sorry for delayed reply. I will try to follow your suggestion.

Thanks dumi. I know I have problems with sentence structure. I'm trying to work on it. I'll post GRE essays in right forum in future. Didn't understand that I was writing in an inappropriate place.

.... that's ok....next time do it right :D THANKS!

Try not to follow the traditional essay structure. Don't say "firstly", "secondly", "thirdly", and "in conclusion" - these make your essay sound weaker! Try to think outside the box and be unique in your writing style.

To help the people who read your essay see you as a person, add in personal experiences - have you been in a situation where you have made a decision based on emotion first, and then realized that this was the wrong decision? Have you seen another person go through this process? Anecdotes will strengthen your argument. You can also use events that have occurred in society as examples - these are more persuasive than hypothetical situations.

Thanks Sybrinth.

Regarding the linking words, what else can I use to link the paragraphs? Would it be better if I use 'In addition', 'moreover', 'furthermore' instead? Almost all the resources I went through advised to use linking words to make essays coherent. If I read the my essay now except the linking words, it seems like the paragraphs are weakly connected.

Given another read to my essay, I feel it is too boring. A touch of personal experience could make it interesting. Thanks for the advice.

Think about how each paragraph connects to the previous one. For example, for your third paragraph, you could start out with something like "Emotion can also affect decision-making on a larger level of society, as seen with presidential elections", because your second paragraph talks about local/personal issues while your third paragraph goes into the national level. I don't know, I'm not that great at transitions either, but I hope this helps a little.