Some suggestion on the GRE E-Rated Essays (Arg)

[MDZhao]

Please give me some help to analysis and review my GRE essays:

I just used the E-Rater of ETS to grade two of my GRE AWA essays, one of which is an Issue, and the other one is an Argument. In that robot system, my Issue received a score of 5. However, regarding to the Argument part, which is commonly believed to be easier, I only got a 4.

E-Rater robot did not give me enough information about why I got this score, so I really need some nice person to review the essay, and give me a little suggestion about where does the problem lie in?

I'm eagerly hoping to get a reply from you! And thank you for you kindness in advance. Please see the essay I submitted to E-Rater as fellow.

TOPIC: ARGUMENT1 - The following appeared as a letter to the editor of a local newspaper.

"Five years ago, we residents of Morganton voted to keep the publicly owned piece of land known as Scott Woods in a natural, undeveloped state. Our thinking was that, if no shopping centers or houses were built there, Scott Woods would continue to benefit our community as a natural parkland. But now that our town planning committee wants to purchase the land and build a school there, we should reconsider this issue. If the land becomes a school site, no shopping centers or houses can be built there, and substantial acreage would probably be devoted to athletic fields. There would be no better use of land in our community than this, since a large majority of our children participate in sports, and Scott Woods would continue to benefit our community as natural parkland."

WORDS: 532 TIME: 0:30:00 DATE: 2006-9-12
Score: 4

The letter above suggests reconsidering the former planning of using Scott Woods as an undeveloped natural park land. The author believes that by turning that land into a school, it will be beneficial to the community. This suggestion sounds great at the first glance; however, it does not provide enough information about the former planning and the newly proposed one. Thus, local people may still need further information before voting to support the new suggestion.

The author might ignore possibly damaging constructions to this natural land other than building a shopping center, one of which is the proposed school. Scott Woods was planned to be conserved as a natural park land, and the author admits constructions like shopping centers would harm its role as a landscape for all community. However, what will the school do to this land? As a common sense, one school needs a lot of buildings as its teaching buildings or dormitories. Furthermore, all these construction can harm the natural beauty of Scott Woods in the same way as constructing a shopping center there. Unless the author provide more detailed information about the school's building plan and ensure that the natural land can be reserved during the construction, local residents are not likely to be favor of this suggestion.

Even the school can be built up without negative effect on the natural land, we still need to make sure whether it can really continue to benefit the community, as the author stated. How would the school be managed? Would the school open its campus to local people as visitors to the natural land? The author should give local people promise before they vote. Moreover, the author should also give evidence that the town planning committee would be faithful to their promise of turning that land into a school, but not other buildings like a shopping center. Local people may wonder: Does this committee have a reliable background? Is there any department in the government can supervise the project and ensure the land would not be switched to other use after selling it to the committee? If these questions can be answered before voting process, the plan may receive more support from residents.

Given the fact as the author suggested that the project will be carried out strictly according to the suggested plan, we may still need to look whether we do need more athletic fields or more schools in our community. How many schools do we have in this area presently? Does every school have its athletic fields? We must make sure we need to do something before doing it. Additionally, the suggested school's athletic fields may not really benefit all community members as the author suggested, because athletic sports may be too exciting and do not fit to mid-aged and old-aged people. With the additional school, children may have more places to play sports on, but how about other people? Concerns above should be put into consideration before publishing this letter on the local news paper to influence people's opinion.

Finally, the author should also give his personal information at first, and ensure the public that he/she does not have invested interest in this proposal. Generally, this plan sounds like a new light of improving the community, but more information and more aspects should be considered before making decision.