Issue 26

"While some leaders in government, sports, industry, and other areas attribute their success to a well-developed sense of competition, a society can better prepare its young people for leadership by instilling in them a sense of cooperation."

这个题目是GRE ISSUE WRITING中很热的一个：cooperation and competition. 而这个题目中又加入了另外一个比较热的:leadership.我们来看看这个作者是怎么来阐述他自己的观点的。

Which is a better way to prepare young people for leadership: developing in them a spirit of competitiveness or one of cooperation? 又是一个问句开头，点出这个statement的题眼。 The speaker favors the latter approach, even though some leaders attribute their success to their keenly developed competitive spirit. I tend to agree with the speaker, for reasons having to do with our increasingly global society, and with the true keys to effective leadership.
看来这里面真是有几个作者都比较喜欢用自问自答的形式来开头，然后直接引入题目中speaker 的观点再来陈述自己的view.

The chief reason why we should stress cooperation in nurturing young people today is that, as tomorrow's leaders, they will face pressing societal problems that simply cannot be solved apart from cooperative international efforts. For example, all nations will need to cooperate in an effort to disarm themselves of weapons of mass destruction; to reduce harmful emissions which destroy ozone and warm the Earth to dangerous levels; to reduce consumption of the Earth's finite natural resources; and to cure and prevent diseases before they become global epidemics. Otherwise, we all risk self-destruction. In short, global peace, economic stability, and survival of the species provide powerful reasons for developing educational paradigms that stress cooperation over competition.
指出合作的重要性，然后列出了原因和具体的事例。这个段落的例子都是从大方面着手，论证的非常有力，并且运用了平行结构—就是排比—增加了力度，语言也体现了，逻辑也体现了。非常好的一个开头，如果后边不跑题，这个文章不会低于5分。

A second compelling reason for instilling in young people a sense of cooperation over competition is that effective leadership depends less on the latter than the former. A leader should show that he or she values the input of subordinates--for example, by involving them in decisions about matters in which they have a direct stake. Otherwise, subordinates might grow to resent their leader, and become unwilling to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the leader's mission. In extreme cases they might even sabotage that mission, or even take their useful ideas to competitors. And after all, without other people worth leading a person cannot be a leader let alone an effective one.
这个部分是开始陈述为什么自己认为合作要比竞争更重要的原因。用下属和上司的关系来做例子证明合作的意义和影响更大些。

A third reason why instilling a sense of cooperation is to be preferred over instilling a sense of competition is that the latter serves to narrow a leader's focus on thwarting the efforts of competitors. With such tunnel vision it is difficult to develop other, more creative means of attaining organizational objectives. Moreover, such means often involve synergistic solutions that call for alliances, partnerships, and other cooperative efforts with would-be competitors. Those who would oppose the speaker might point out that a thriving economy depends on a freely competitive business environment, which ensures that consumers obtain high-quality goods and services at low prices. Thus key leadership positions, especially in business, inherently call for a certain tenacity and competitive spirit. And, a competitive spirit seems especially critical in today's hyper-competitive technology-driven economy, where any leader filing to keep pace with ever-changing business and technological paradigms soon fails by the wayside. However, a leader's effectiveness as a competitor is not necessarily inconsistent with his or her ability to cooperate with subordinates or with competitors, as noted above.
这个部分是辨证的谈了合作和竞争的关系，从中用了商业中的一些事例来支持自己认为合作更重要的观点。

In sum, if we were to take the speaker's advice too far we would risk becoming a world without leaders, who are bred of a competitive spirit. We would also risk the key benefits of a free-market economy. Nevertheless, on balance I agree that it is more important to instill in young people a sense of cooperation than one of competition. The speaker's preference properly reflects the growing role of cooperative alliances and efforts in solving the world's most pressing problems. After all, in a world in which our very survival as a species depends on cooperation, the spirit of even healthy competition, no matter how healthy, is of little value to any of us.
在最后又重新陈述了自己的观点当作是点题。

来个小结，这个文章和我们评过的ETS的满分文章相比要水平高，语言也非常简洁有力，而且例子也都举的恰倒好处，逻辑线索非常明了，是一篇难得的好文章。
前天给大家留了个问题问：什么是effective writing，这个就是effective writing。但是感觉大家都不是讨论的很积极的样子。再说一次，这个概念是GRE WRITING 中非常重要的两个概念中的一个，也是考点所在。大家好好思考一下吧。

点评人：寄托天下作文版斑竹angeikim