Hello all :)
Below is an issue essay under timed conditions and I would appreciate it if I could get a GRE grading on it. Please be honest, but supply feedback with the scores as well :)
Thanks
Prompt: "It takes a village to raise a child." The education of your children is the task of the community as a whole, not merely the province of teachers and local school administrators.
Essay:
Educational institutions and teachers simply lay the footpaths, while the children must decide how their educational garden grows. It is important for a student to obtain a holistic education in order to survive in today's global climate and communities help immensely in achieving this goal. However, one must not abate the importance of these institutions during the moulding years of a child's life. It must be recognised that these play an integral role in their whole learning experience.
Schools and teachers allow children to gain from a standard level of education nationally. It gives the child a level playing field to test their knowledge and understanding of concepts, enabling healthy competition between minds. Undoubtedly, a child that grows within a well-connected community will benefit as well. Many "street smart" skills that are not taught in schools i.e. learning to be astute with money, can only be learnt outside the educational environment and these should be valued greatly. However, looking at it from a career perspective, schools are the preferred medium that allow children to expand their knowledge base. A student cannot hope to learn advanced engineering concepts if he/she wants to work in that field in the future. Admittedly, the knowledge acquired in these institutions can be used in communities as a form of practical application, but the reverse is often not true.
While some kids may have long-lasting communities to grow within, others may live in many for an ephemeral period. Consider a child that is mobile nationally. If he is constantly changing communities, the chance for him to gain significant knowledge is unlikely as relationships are not built. Consequently, provided he is within national borders, he can hope to gain a continuous and uninterrupted educational pattern through schools and teachers as the curriculum is similar throughout the country. Students in this scenario have to rely on educational institutions to gain their knowledge pertaining to communities being of little or no use.
In fact, recent studies show that 60% of all jobs in the US require higher education. It follows that schools and teachers are important if the child wishes to secure a prosperous future. Unfortunately, a child that emphasises education from a community cannot hope for as bright a future.
However, communities are still a valid and important part of a student's education process. They can be an exemplary medium through which to apply concepts learnt in school. For example, an engineering student may have learnt about heat expansion and wishes to see it take place in a garage. Communities and existing businesses will allow him the chance to experience them in practicality; something not all educational institutions emphasise on.
Thus, it can be noted that an all round education is vital to a student; one in which communities are involved. Furthermore, communities are adept at providing practical situations to theoretical concepts for children that wish to learn more. However, it is an extreme to claim that education cannot happen without communities, as some students may not have the chance to live within a community during their educational years and this should not banish them from a chance for enlightenment.
This is a five. Nice work.
Here's what precludes a six:
---a couple of questionable word choices
---some repetition (more than would occur in a six)
---sentence variety (above average but not superior)
As you can imagine, It's hard to get a perfect score. I've written a little about this here. (The article focuses on the SAT but it's true of all timed essays.)
