Analyze an IssueScience & research

Scientists have a responsibility to weigh the social consequences of their discoveries, not only their scientific validity.

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.

Your estimated score and rubric breakdown will appear here.

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.

Separate the duty to foresee from the duty to control. Scientists can reasonably be asked to consider foreseeable consequences, but discoveries are often used in ways no one intended, so consider where a scientist's responsibility realistically ends and society's begins.

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

Scientists understand their work's potential better than anyone, so they are uniquely placed to flag foreseeable dangers before others can.
History shows that ignoring consequences enables harm, from unethical experiments to weapons, so a norm of considering them is a safeguard.

Against, or complicating

Uses are often unforeseeable and beyond a researcher's control, so holding scientists responsible for every downstream misuse is unfair and could chill inquiry.
Weighing social consequences risks importing bias into what should be an objective search for truth, and society, through law and ethics boards, may be better placed to govern use.

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 Manhattan Project physicists, several of whom later campaigned against the weapons they helped create.
2Institutional review boards that now weigh the ethics of human-subjects research before it proceeds.
3Dual-use biology, where the same technique can cure disease or engineer a pathogen.

Watch out

A common trap on this prompt.

Collapsing "weigh the consequences" into "control all outcomes." A scientist can hold the first responsibility without being blamed for every unforeseeable misuse, and conflating the two makes either extreme easy to attack.

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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