GMAT Quick Links:
GMAT Issue Prompt (Topic) No. 2 and Example Essay
|
The GMAT Issue writing task is designed to test your ability to communicate your opinion on an issue effectively and persuasively. Your task is to analyze the issue presented, considering various perspectives, and to develop your own position on the issue. There is no "correct" answer. [Section format and directions]
Issue prompt No. 2 consists of an Issue statement (in quotes) followed by a brief directive for responding to the statement. Keep in mind: the Issue statement here is not one of those in the official pool, and so you won't see this one on the actual GMAT.
"The media today place too much emphasis on provocative images, and not enough emphasis on the ideas and events behind those images."
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the foregoing statement? Use reasons and/or examples from your experience, observation, and/or reading to explain your viewpoint.
Some phrases are highlighted to help you see the structure of the essay and how it responds to the directive. (The exam's basic word processor does not provide this feature.)
This essay is brief enough to plan and type in 30 minutes. But it was not composed under a strict time limit. Be assured that you can attain a top score with an essay that's less polished and a bit briefer than this one.
The essay is intended as a benchmark response — one that would earn a top score of 6. But it is by no means "the" correct response to the prompt. Another top-scoring essay might be organized differently, adopt a contrary position, or provide other supporting reasons and examples.
Upon first glance at today's media, it would appear that the speaker is correct. However, in my view the media's emphasis on image is largely justifiable. Moreover, the speaker understates the extent to which the media also covers the substance behind those images, as discussed below.
I concede that the media today do place considerable emphasis on image. Advertisements are increasingly resorting to fast-moving, sexy, images. In fact, advertisements which provide no product information whatsoever — not even about what the product looks like or how it is to be used — are becoming increasingly common. Also, while tabloid magazines and television programs abound, intelligent discourse can be found sparingly only on public television and a few other arts and education channels, and among the stacks of scholarly journals at our libraries and at obscure websites and blogs. And, despite television's tremendous potential for airing the vital political issues of the day, the brief sound bites from our self-conscious politicians today hardly meet that potential.
Whether this emphasis on image is justifiable, it is certainly understandable — at least with respect to advertising, for two reasons. First, products are becoming more and more fungible these days; consider automobiles, for instance. Since they vary little from one make to another today, marketers are forced to resort to image for product differentiation. The second reason has to do with the fact that we are becoming an increasingly busy society. In the U.S., for instance, the average work week is now over 65 hours, compared to 40 a generation ago. Meanwhile, the number of goods and services competing for our attention seems to grow exponentially. Thus, how can the growing number of businesses compete for our limited time except by resorting to attention-grabbing images?
However understandable this focus on image, is it nevertheless unjustifiable, as the speaker implies? Media critics point out that undue focus on appearances and images amounts to an appeal to our emotions and our baser, prurient instincts rather than to our intellect and reason. Taken to an extreme, argue the critics, such focus facilitates irrationality, and even sanctions demagoguery. The result is that we dissuade ourselves as a society from engaging in the sort of informed debate needed for any democracy to survive, let alone thrive. I might be convinced by the critics were the media to withhold the substance underlying the images; but they do not. Behind most newspaper headlines, magazine cover stories, and reputable Internet home pages is a wealth of substantive content; we simply need to look for it.
In sum, while I wholeheartedly agree that the media should not sacrifice substance merely to get our attention, what the speaker gets wrong is that it is not the media's job to wave information and ideas in front of us; rather, it is up to us to look for them behind the hoopla and the headlines.
