Analyze an IssueGovernment & policy

Governments should focus their funding on basic scientific research rather than on applied research aimed at immediate practical results.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning. In developing and supporting your position, consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true, and explain how those considerations shape your view.

Write your response

Give yourself 30 minutes, then get an instant estimate against the official rubric.

Issue prompt

Your essay0 words

An expert estimate against the official rubric, not an official ETS score. ETS scores with a human reader plus the e-rater engine.

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How to approach it

A reliable structure for any Issue prompt.

1Take a clear position in the first paragraph. The reader should know exactly where you stand on the issue before the body begins.
2Develop two or three reasons, each with a specific example. Depth beats a long list of thin points.
3Answer the strongest counter-argument. Engaging the other side is what separates a 5 from a 4.
4Leave two minutes to proofread. A few clean sentences at the end lift the language score.

For the full 0–6 band descriptors and what each score means, see the AWA grader guide.

This prompt

How to approach this prompt.

The real question is which kind of research the market underfunds on its own. Argue from market failure: companies already have strong incentives to fund applied work with a near-term payoff, so the distinctive case for public money is strongest exactly where private returns are weakest, namely basic research.

Both sides

Points for and against.

A strong essay does not just pick a side. Weigh the best case each way, then explain which considerations shape your own view.

In support

Basic research has unpredictable, long-horizon payoffs that private firms rarely fund, so if government does not support it, much of it will not happen at all.
Today's applied breakthroughs often rest on decades-old basic discoveries, meaning a purely applied focus quietly consumes a seed corn it is not replanting.

Against, or complicating

Voters fund research partly to solve pressing problems now, and a government that ignores applied work on disease or energy may lose the public support science depends on.
The line between basic and applied is blurry; a rigid preference for one category can starve promising translational work that sits between them.

Evidence

Examples you could use.

Specific, relevant examples are what readers reward most. Here are concrete cases you could adapt for this exact statement. Use them as reasoning, not as facts to recite.

1The decades between early mRNA basic research and its rapid applied deployment in vaccines.
2Publicly funded fundamental physics at CERN, whose payoffs, including the web itself, were not the original goal.
3The US National Institutes of Health funding basic biology that private pharmaceutical firms later build drugs upon.

Watch out

A common trap on this prompt.

Framing it as basic research being nobler than applied. The stronger argument is economic, about who else will pay, not a ranking of which science is more admirable.

Questions

GRE essay questions, answered.

There is no required word count. High-scoring Analyze an Issue essays are typically well-developed across four to six paragraphs, roughly 400 to 600 words, but a reader rewards depth of reasoning and specific support, not raw length. A tight, fully developed 450-word essay outscores a padded 700-word one.

The GRE Analytical Writing task is scored holistically from 0 to 6 in half-point steps against the official ETS descriptors. The reported score averages one trained human reader and the e-rater engine; if they disagree by more than a point, a second human reader adjudicates. It is reported separately from the 260 to 340 Verbal and Quant total.

No. This is an original prompt written in the official Analyze an Issue style so you can practise freely. The real ETS pool is published on the ETS website. Practising on same-style prompts builds the exact skills the scored task rewards, since every Issue prompt uses the same task instructions and the same rubric.

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