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发表于 2011-2-11 16:40:43
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6.Analyze an Argument Task
Understanding the Argument Task
The "Analyze an Argument" task assesses your ability to understand, analyze, and evaluate arguments and
to clearly convey your analysis in writing. The task consists of a brief passage in which the author makes a
case for some course of action or interpretation of events by presenting claims backed by reasons and
evidence. Your task is to discuss the logical soundness of the author's case by critically examining the line
of reasoning and the use of evidence. This task requires you to read the argument very carefully. You
might want to read it more than once and possibly make brief notes about points you want to develop more
fully in your response. In reading the argument, you should pay special attention to
• what is offered as evidence, support, or proof
• what is explicitly stated, claimed, or concluded
• what is assumed or supposed, perhaps without justification or proof
• what is not stated, but necessarily follows from what is stated
（明确考察目标：衡量WRITER对论点的理解，分析和评估，并成功地把思想转移到文章中的能力。需要根据题目中所给的内容和得出的结论，找出其中的纰漏，然后苛刻地根据自己的发现来辩驳原文结论。得理不饶人，无理也要搅三分。）
In addition, you should consider the structure of the argument—the way in which these elements are linked
together to form a line of reasoning; that is, you should recognize the separate, sometimes implicit steps in
the thinking process and consider whether the movement from each one to the next is logically sound. In
tracing this line, look for transition words and phrases that suggest that the author is attempting to make a
logical connection (e.g., however, thus, therefore, evidently, hence, in conclusion).
An important part of performing well on the Argument task is remembering what you are not being asked
to do. You are not being asked to discuss whether the statements in the argument are true or accurate;
instead, you are being asked whether conclusions and inferences are validly drawn from the statements.
You are not being asked to agree or disagree with the position stated; instead, you are being asked to
comment on the thinking that underlies the position stated. You are not being asked to express your own
views on the subject being discussed (as you were in the Issue task); instead, you are being asked to
evaluate the logical soundness of an argument of another writer and, in doing so, to demonstrate the critical
thinking, perceptive reading, and analytical writing skills that university faculty consider important for
success in graduate school.
（非常重要的几点注意事项，需要认清楚ARGUMENT的本质要求，是对原文的挑肥拣瘦和鸡蛋里挑骨头，想方设法找到纰漏的地方来进行攻击（即使你认为结论挺合理的），而不能FREE地表达你的想法。）
"Analyze an Argument" is primarily a critical thinking task requiring a written response. Consequently, the
analytical skills displayed in your critique carry great weight in determining your score.
Understanding the Context for Writing: Purpose and Audience
The purpose of the task is to see how well equipped you are to insightfully analyze an argument written by
someone else and to effectively communicate your critique in writing to an academic audience. Your
audience consists of college and university faculty who are trained as GRE readers to apply the scoring
criteria identified in the scoring guide for the “Analyze an Argument” task (see page 28).
To get a clearer idea of how GRE readers apply the Argument scoring criteria to actual essays, you should
review scored sample Argument essay responses and readers' commentaries. The sample responses,
particularly at the 5 and 6 score levels, will show you a variety of successful strategies for organizing and
developing an insightful critique. You will also see many examples of particularly effective uses of
language. The readers' commentaries discuss specific aspects of analytical writing, such as cogency of
ideas, development and support, organization, syntactic variety, and facility with language. These
commentaries will point out aspects that are particularly effective and insightful as well as any that detract
from the overall effectiveness of the responses.
Preparing for the Argument Task
Because the Argument task is meant to assess analytical writing and informal reasoning skills that you have
developed throughout your education, it has been designed so as not to require any specific course of study
or to advantage students with a particular type of training. Many college textbooks on rhetoric and
composition have sections on informal logic and critical thinking that might prove helpful, but even these
might be more detailed and technical than the task requires. You will not be expected to know methods of
analysis or technical terms. For instance, in one topic an elementary school principal might conclude that
the new playground equipment has improved student attendance because absentee rates have declined
since it was installed. You will not need to see that the principal has committed the post hoc, ergo propter
hoc fallacy; you will simply need to see that there are other possible explanations for the improved
attendance, to offer some common-sense examples, and perhaps to suggest what would be necessary to
verify the conclusion. For instance, absentee rates might have decreased because the climate was mild.
This would have to be ruled out in order for the principal’s conclusion to be valid.
Although you do not need to know special analytical techniques and terminology, you should be familiar
with the directions for the Argument task and with certain key concepts, including the following:
• alternative explanation—a possible competing version of what might have caused the events in
question; an alternative explanation undercuts or qualifies the original explanation because it too
can account for the observed facts
• analysis—the process of breaking something (e.g., an argument) down into its component parts in
order to understand how they work together to make up the whole; also a presentation, usually in
writing, of the results of this process
• argument—a claim or a set of claims with reasons and evidence offered as support; a line of
reasoning meant to demonstrate the truth or falsehood of something
• assumption—a belief, often unstated or unexamined, that someone must hold in order to maintain
a particular position; something that is taken for granted but that must be true in order for the
conclusion to be true
• conclusion—the end point reached by a line of reasoning, valid if the reasoning is sound; the
resulting assertion
• counterexample—an example, real or hypothetical, that refutes or disproves a statement in the
argument
An excellent way to prepare for the "Analyze an Argument" task is to practice writing on some of the
published Argument topics. There is no one way to practice that is best for everyone. Some prefer to start
practicing without adhering to the 30-minute time limit. If you follow this approach, take all the time you
need to analyze the argument. No matter which approach you take, you should
• carefully read the argument—you might want to read it over more than once
• identify as many of its claims, conclusions, and underlying assumptions as possible
• think of as many alternative explanations and counterexamples as you can
• think of what additional evidence might weaken or lend support to the claims
• ask yourself what changes in the argument would make the reasoning more sound
（完成ARGUMENT的一些官方建议，仔细审查信息，总结出其结论，越多越好；归结出在同等条件下有可能出现的不同结果，以及相反的例子，越多越好。想出哪些可以削弱或加强结论的证据，并思考如何改变会使结论更加可信。）
Write down each of these thoughts as a brief note. When you've gone as far as you can with your analysis,
look over the notes and put them in a good order for discussion (perhaps by numbering them). Then write a
critique by fully developing each of your points in turn. Even if you choose not to write a full essay
response, you should find it very helpful to practice analyzing a few of the arguments and sketching out
your responses. When you become quicker and more confident, you should practice writing some
Argument responses within the 30-minute time limit so that you will have a good sense of how to pace
yourself in the actual test. For example, you will not want to discuss one point so exhaustively or to
provide so many equivalent examples that you run out of time to make your other main points.
You might want to get feedback on your response(s) from a writing instructor, a philosophy teacher, or
someone who emphasizes critical thinking in his or her course. It can also be very informative to trade
papers on the same topic with fellow students and discuss one another's responses in terms of the scoring
guide. Focus not so much on giving the "right scores" as on seeing how the papers meet or miss the
performance standards for each score point and what you therefore need to do in order to improve.
（同ISSUE的INTRO大体相同，重在与人交换思想，旁观者清。）
How to Interpret Numbers, Percentages, and Statistics in Argument Topics
Some arguments contain numbers, percentages, or statistics that are offered as evidence in support of the
argument's conclusion. For example, an argument might claim that a certain community event is less
popular this year than it was last year because only 100 people attended this year in comparison with 150
last year, a 33 percent decline in attendance. It is important to remember that you are not being asked to do
a mathematical task with the numbers, percentages, or statistics. Instead you should evaluate these as
evidence that is intended to support the conclusion. In the example above, the conclusion is that a
community event has become less popular. You should ask yourself: does the difference between 100
people and 150 people support that conclusion? Note that, in this case, there are other possible
explanations; for example, the weather might have been much worse this year, this year's event might have
been held at an inconvenient time, the cost of the event might have gone up this year, or there might have
been another popular event this year at the same time. Each of these could explain the difference in
attendance, and thus would weaken the conclusion that the event was "less popular." Similarly,
percentages might support or weaken a conclusion depending on what actual numbers the percentages
represent. Consider the claim that the drama club at a school deserves more funding because its
membership has increased by 100 percent. This 100 percent increase could be significant if there had been
100 members and now there are 200 members, whereas the increase would be much less significant if there
had been 5 members and now there are 10. Remember that any numbers, percentages, or statistics in
Argument topics are used only as evidence in support of a conclusion, and you should always consider
whether they actually support the conclusion.
（注意题目中的数字游戏，以及可能造成数据变化的原因，然后思考其中的数字是否真正可以推出给出的结论.)
The Form of Your Response
You are free to organize and develop your critique in any way that you think will effectively communicate
your analysis of the argument. Your response may, but need not, incorporate particular writing strategies
learned in English composition or writing-intensive college courses. GRE readers will not be looking for a
particular developmental strategy or mode of writing. In fact, when faculty are trained to be GRE readers,
they review hundreds of Argument responses that, although highly diverse in content and form, display
similar levels of critical thinking and analytical writing. Readers will see, for example, some essays at the
6 score level that begin by briefly summarizing the argument and then explicitly stating and developing the
main points of the critique. The readers know that a writer can earn a high score by analyzing and
developing several points in a critique or by identifying a central flaw in the argument and developing that
critique extensively. You might want to look at the sample Argument responses, particularly at the 5 and 6
score levels, to see how other writers have successfully developed and organized their critiques.
(READERS对分析出多个不同的批评点或重点指出一个主要的纰漏进行深入讨论的文章更加青睐，分数也会更高。)
You should make choices about format and organization that you think support and enhance the overall
effectiveness of your critique. This means using as many or as few paragraphs as you consider appropriate
for your critique—for example, creating a new paragraph when your discussion shifts to a new point of
analysis. You might want to organize your critique around the organization of the argument itself,
discussing the argument line by line. Or you might want to first point out a central questionable
assumption and then move on to discuss related flaws in the argument's line of reasoning. Similarly, you
might want to use examples if they help illustrate an important point in your critique or move your
discussion forward (remember, however, that, in terms of your ability to perform the Argument task
effectively, it is your critical thinking and analytical writing, not your ability to come up with examples,
that is being assessed). What matters is not the form the response takes, but how insightfully you analyze
the argument and how articulately you communicate your analysis to academic readers within the context
of the task.
Sample Argument Topic
Hospital statistics regarding people who go to the emergency room after roller skating accidents indicate
the need for more protective equipment. Within this group of people, 75 percent of those who had
accidents in streets or parking lots were not wearing any protective clothing (helmets, knee pads, etc.) or
any light-reflecting material (clip-on lights, glow-in-the-dark wrist pads, etc.). Clearly, these statistics
indicate that by investing in high-quality protective gear and reflective equipment, roller skaters will greatly
reduce their risk of being severely injured in an accident.
Strategies for this Topic
This argument cites a particular hospital statistic to support the general conclusion that “investing in high-
quality protective gear and reflective equipment” will reduce the risk of being severely injured in a roller
skating accident.
In developing your analysis, you should ask yourself whether the hospital statistic actually supports the
conclusion. You might want to ask yourself such questions as:
• What percentage of all roller skaters goes to the emergency room after roller skating accidents?
• Are the people who go to the emergency room after roller skating accidents representative of roller
skaters in general?
• Are there people who are injured in roller skating accidents who do not go to the emergency
room?
• Were the roller skaters who went to the emergency room severely injured?
• Were the 25 percent of roller skaters who were wearing protective gear injured just as severely as
the 75 percent who were not wearing the gear?
• Are streets and parking lots inherently more dangerous for roller skating than other places?
• Would mid-quality gear and equipment be just as effective as high-quality gear and equipment in
reducing the risk of severe injury while roller skating?
• Are there factors other than gear and equipment—e.g., weather conditions, visibility, skill of the
skaters—that might be more closely correlated with the risk of roller skating injuries?
（非常全面的分析，从各个角度，需要多好防护装备的质量，伤势的程度，以及两者是不是只有入住EMERGENCY中，不戴安全护具的入住比率是比较高的，等等等等，仔细审查每一句话，对文中的每个条件都给出疑问，列好纲领，一篇好的ARGUMENT跃然纸上。）
Considering possible answers to questions such as these will help you identify assumptions, alternative
explanations, and weaknesses that you can develop in your critique of the argument. |
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