Analyze an IssueWork & leadership

Organizations function best when they encourage cooperation rather than competition among their members.

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.

Notice the false binary and the missing variable: what is being competed over. Internal competition for a fixed pool can poison collaboration, while competition against an external rival can unite a team. Argue that the target of competition, not competition itself, decides the outcome.

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

Shared goals and knowledge-sharing raise the whole organization, whereas internal rivalry tempts people to hoard information and undermine peers.
Cooperation reduces the duplicated effort and turf wars that internal competition breeds, letting the organization pull in one direction.

Against, or complicating

Some competition drives excellence and effort, and pure cooperation can slide into complacency or groupthink where no one is pushed.
The prompt ignores what is competed over: competing against an external rival can bind a team together even as they cooperate internally.

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.

1Stack-ranking systems that were abandoned after they were found to pit colleagues against each other and harm collaboration.
2A sales team competing hard against a rival firm while cooperating tightly among themselves.
3Open-source projects that advance through large-scale cooperation among contributors.

Watch out

A common trap on this prompt.

Treating cooperation and competition as pure opposites. Healthy organizations usually blend both, and the sharpest move is to distinguish destructive internal rivalry from motivating external competition.

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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