Analyze an IssueTechnology

Governments should regulate emerging technologies before they are widely adopted rather than after problems appear.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous, and explain how those examples 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.

This is the Collingridge dilemma in disguise: early on we can still control a technology but do not yet understand its harms; by the time we understand them it is entrenched. Frame your response around that genuine tension rather than pretending one timing is costless.

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

Once a technology is entrenched, undoing harm is far harder, so acting early can prevent damage that later rules can only mitigate.
Waiting for problems means the public absorbs the harm first, and some early harms, to privacy or safety, cannot be undone.

Against, or complicating

Regulating before a technology's uses are understood risks banning benefits and entrenching incumbents, since regulators cannot foresee how it will be used.
Premature rules can freeze a field, and heavy compliance burdens fall hardest on small innovators rather than the large firms best able to absorb 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 EU's approach of regulating AI by risk tier before the highest-risk uses are widespread.
2Aviation and pharmaceuticals, where strong pre-market approval is broadly accepted because the harms are severe and clear.
3Early internet regulation that could plausibly have blocked services no one had yet imagined.

Watch out

A common trap on this prompt.

Picking "before" or "after" as if either were free. The honest answer is that both timings carry real costs, and the strongest essays specify which technologies warrant early rules rather than issuing a blanket rule.

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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