An original GRE "Analyze an Issue" practice prompt on competition versus cooperation — write a timed response, then compare it against three model answers.

প্রতিযোগিতা বনাম সহযোগিতা নিয়ে একটি মৌলিক GRE "Analyze an Issue" অনুশীলন প্রম্পট — সময়বদ্ধ উত্তর লিখুন, তারপর তুলনা করুন।

30min
Timeসময়
1
Taskটাস্ক
0–6
Score Rangeস্কোর সীমা

How to use it: Start the timer, plan for ~5 minutes, then write your essay in the box below. When you're done, open the checklist and the model responses to self-assess.

ব্যবহারের নিয়ম: টাইমার শুরু করুন, পরিকল্পনা করুন, তারপর রচনা লিখুন।

Issue Prompt

"In any field, competition leads to better outcomes than cooperation."

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement above and explain your reasoning. In developing your position, consider ways the statement might or might not hold true, and explain how these considerations shape your position.

30:00
Aim for 400–600 words.0 words

Self-Assessment Checklist

লেখা শেষে নিজেই যাচাই করুন — প্রতিটি সঠিক হলে টিক দিন।

0 / 8 checked

Model Responses

Compare your essay against these three model responses, written at different score levels on the official 0-6 rubric.

আপনার রচনাকে বিভিন্ন স্কোর স্তরের এই তিনটি মডেল উত্তরের সাথে তুলনা করুন।

Model Response Score 6

The claim that competition outperforms cooperation "in any field" is too sweeping: competition drives progress well in domains where success can be independently pursued and measured, but many of the most significant human achievements have depended on cooperation precisely because no single competitor could achieve them alone.

Competition's strengths are clearest in domains like business and athletics, where rival firms or athletes push one another toward continual improvement. The rapid pace of smartphone innovation across competing companies over the past two decades, each racing to outdo the other's cameras, batteries, and processors, illustrates how rivalry can accelerate progress that a single monopolist might have delivered far more slowly.

However, this dynamic breaks down in fields where the scale of the problem exceeds what any single competitor can solve, and cooperation becomes not just helpful but necessary. The Human Genome Project succeeded through an international, collaborative effort among laboratories across many countries who agreed to share data openly rather than compete for exclusive discovery — a strategy that produced faster and more reliable results than a fragmented, competitive race would likely have achieved, as the parallel private effort by Celera Genomics, while faster in isolation, ultimately relied on and converged with the public, cooperative data. Global challenges like climate change and pandemic response similarly depend on cooperation between competing nations, since a single country's unilateral action cannot solve a problem that crosses every border.

A defender of the statement might point to the Cold War-era Space Race as evidence that competition, not cooperation, produced the Apollo moon landing. This is true as far as it goes, but it also illustrates the statement's limits: the same competitive dynamic that accelerated the moon landing arguably slowed broader international scientific collaboration in the following decades, and today's most ambitious space projects, including the International Space Station, are explicitly built on cooperation among former rivals.

In conclusion, competition is a powerful engine for improvement in fields where achievement can be pursued independently and compared directly, but cooperation tends to produce better outcomes in fields defined by shared, large-scale problems — meaning the statement's claim that competition wins "in any field" does not hold universally.

Why this scores a 6: Directly challenges the absolute scope of the prompt ("in any field") and replaces it with a well-reasoned, field-dependent framework; uses multiple specific, accurately described examples (smartphone competition, Human Genome Project vs. Celera, the Space Race, International Space Station) on both sides of the argument; the counterargument about the Space Race is substantial and is turned back to support the nuanced thesis rather than simply conceded; sophisticated, varied sentence structure throughout. প্রম্পটের ব্যাপক দাবি নিয়ে গভীর বিশ্লেষণ ও একাধিক নির্দিষ্ট উদাহরণের কারণে এটি ৬ স্কোর পায়।
Model Response Score 4–5

I disagree that competition always leads to better outcomes than cooperation in every field, because I think it really depends on the type of field or problem being addressed.

In some fields, like business, competition can push companies to improve their products and lower prices, which benefits consumers. Companies that don't compete well often fall behind, so competition can motivate better performance.

However, in other fields, especially science and global problems, cooperation seems more effective. When scientists or countries work together and share information, they can solve big problems faster than if everyone was just competing against each other and keeping their research secret.

Someone might argue that competition still played a role in historical achievements like the space race, and that's true, but I think many modern challenges, like climate change, require cooperation between countries rather than competition, since no single country can solve them alone.

In conclusion, I believe competition works better in some fields like business, but cooperation is more effective in others like science and global issues, so the statement is not true for every field.

Why this scores a 4–5: Reaches a similar field-dependent conclusion to the score-6 essay and raises a genuine counterexample (the space race) — but the supporting points stay general ("scientists," "companies," "big problems") without naming a specific project, company, or event, so the analysis feels correct but underdeveloped. উপসংহার যুক্তিসঙ্গত কিন্তু নির্দিষ্ট উদাহরণের অভাবে এটি ৪-৫ স্কোরের পর্যায়ে থাকে।
Model Response Score 3

I disagree that competition is always better than cooperation because both are important in different situations and one is not always better than the other.

Competition can be good because it makes people try harder, but cooperation is also good because people can help each other and get more done together than they would alone.

Some people think competition is better but I think it just depends on the situation and both things have good points depending on what is happening.

In conclusion I think competition and cooperation are both important and neither one is always better than the other in every field or situation.

Why this scores a 3: The essay repeats "it depends" without ever specifying what it depends on, offers no field, example, or scenario of any kind, and each paragraph restates the same vague balance between competition and cooperation rather than developing a substantive argument. The conclusion is a near-verbatim repeat of the introduction. অস্পষ্ট যুক্তি ও উদাহরণের সম্পূর্ণ অভাবে এই উত্তর ৩ স্কোর পায়।