GRE作文点评：开启我们的辨证思维

　　Issue 18

　　Money spent on research is almost always a good investment, even when the results of that research are controversial.

　　I agree with the speakers broad assertion that money spent on research is generally money well invested. However, the speaker unnecessarily extends this broad assertion to embrace research whose results are controversial, while ignoring certain compelling reasons why some types of research might be unjustifiable. My points of contention with the speaker involves the fundamental objectives and nature of research, as discussed below.

　　精华：However, the speaker unnecessarily extends this broad assertion to embrace research whose results are controversial, while ignoring certain compelling reasons why这种说法可以用来抨击原题观点的绝对化，非常有力。

　　My points of contention with the speaker involve the fundamental objectives and nature of research, as discussed below.

　　带出自己观点的新句型。

　　I concede that the speaker is on the correct philosophical side of this issue. After all, research is the exploration of the unknown for true answers to our questions, and for lasting solutions to our enduring problems. Research is also the chief means by which we humans attempt to satisfy our insatiable appetite for knowledge, and our craving to understand ourselves and the world around us. Yet, in the very notion of research also lies my first point of contention with the speaker, who illogically presumes that we can know the results of research before we invest in it. To the contrary, if research is to be of any value it must explore uncharted and unpredictable territory. In fact, query（=doubt）whether research whose benefits are immediate and predictable can break any new ground, or whether it can be considered research at all.

　　在第二段，作者展开论辩，先攻击原观点的逻辑错误who illogically presumes that we can know the results of research before we invest in it ，参照前几篇，我发觉只要是原观点出现了逻辑的错误，大部分作者都不会忘记去指出甚至由此推出自己的独到见解。这是一个好办法，在展现你的申辩能力的同时，不知不觉中也占去了一些字数，挺适合临场发挥的。

　　While we must invest in research irrespective of whether the results might be controversial, at the same time we should be circumspect about research whose objectives are too vague and whose potential benefits are too speculative. After all, expensive research always carries significant opportunity costsin terms of how the money might be spent toward addressing societys more immediate problems that do not require research. One apt illustration of this point involves the so-called Star Wars defense initiative, championed by the Reagan administration during the 1980s. In retrospect, this initiative was ill-conceived and largely a waste of taxpayer dollars; and few would dispute that the exorbitant amount of money devoted to the initiative could have gone a long way toward addressing pressing social problems of the dayby establishing after-school programs for delinquent latchkey kids, by enhancing AIDS awareness and education, and so forth. As it turns out, at the end of the Star Wars debacle we were left with rampant gang violence, an AIDS epidemic, and an unprecedented federal budget deficit.

　　进一步强调并不是所有researches都是valuable 的，必须考虑到其所带来的效益是否损失，否则，是会导致灾难性连锁反应的。

　　在这里需要进一步指出的是，我们在平时练习的时候就要注意多多记住一些有用的数据和年代，这样会非常persuasive convincing啦。

　　The speakers assertion is troubling in two other respects as well. First, no amount of research can completely solve the enduring problems of war, poverty, and violence, for the reason that they stem from certain aspects of human naturesuch as aggression and greed. Although human genome research might eventually enable us to engineer away those undesirable aspects of our nature, in the meantime it is up to our economists, diplomats, social reformers, and juristsnot our research laboratoriesto mitigate these problems. Secondly, for every new research breakthrough that helps reduce human suffering is another that serves primarily to add to that suffering. For example, while some might argue that physics researchers who harnessed the power of the atom have provided us with an alternative source of energy and invaluable peace-keepers, this argument flies in the face of the hundreds of thousands of innocent people murdered and maimed by atomic blasts, and by nuclear meltdowns. And, in fulfilling the promise of better living through chemistry research has given us chemical weapons for human slaughter. In short, so-called advances that scientific research has brought about often amount to net losses for humanity.

　　最后一句是非常震撼的。作者的雄辩提醒各位，时刻从全方位思考每一个问题，也就是说，每一样新事物的出现和产生，必然附带一些不利的因素，也是就类似新概念里的The progress of knowledge所提到的two-edged weapon 效应。

　　In sum, the speakers assertion that we should invest in research whose results are controversial begs the question, because we cannot know whether research will turn out controversial until weve invested in it. As for the speakers broader assertion, I agree that money spent on research is generally a sound investment because it is an investment in the advancement of human knowledge and in human imagination and spirit. Nevertheless, when we do research purely for its own sake without aim or clear purposewe risk squandering resources which could have been applied to relieve the immediate suffering of our dispirited, disadvantaged, and disenfranchised members of society. In the final analysis, given finite economic resources we are forced to strike a balance in how we allocate those resources among competing societal objectives.

　　最后一段作者等于是把每一段的中心进行有效的浓缩归集。

　　这篇文章大部分从反面的角度反驳了原文观点，不仅语言运用得体，而且灵活运用复杂句，是难得的好文章。如果ets心情好，忽略一些语法错误（我已更正）的话，6分应该不成问题的。