8/9/2019 AAMC 4 Essay 2
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Consider this statement:
Only those politicians who have learned the art of compromise
can achieve their political goals
Write a unified essay in which you perform the following tasks.
Explain what you think the above
statement means. Describe a specific situation in which a
politician might achieve a political goal
without compromising. Discuss what you think determines when
politicians should compromise to
achieve a political goal.Sample Essay #1
This very general statement has formed the basis for politics as
we know it and has
been accepted to such an extent where it is often unknown
whether a politician is
compromising or not. Take, for example a Senator wishes to pass
a clean air bill in the
Senate. Perhaps he wishes to eliminate smoking from 50% of the
restaurants and from
40% of public enclosed areas. To pass the bill he raises the
percentages of each to say
80% and 70% respectively. As the bill gets passed around the
Senate, it will be
necessary to compromise in order to please the smoking voters as
well as the non-
smokers. Naturally, the more powerful lobby will get more say,
but assuming they are
relatively equal, the politicians will want to compromise to
satisfy both parties. By the
end, let's say, the bill gets passed with elimination of smoking
in 45% of the
restaurants and 45% of public enclosed areas. For the Senator
who initiated the bill,
compromise was merely a political tactic to achieve his own
goals. Ostensibly, he
compromised but he essentially did not. In this way the art of
compromise gets
muddled, and it becomes difficult to determine when someone is
really compromising o
not.
There are situations in which it is better not to compromise,
even on the outside. A
common example is that of terrorism. Terrorism is an extremely
effective mode of
politics because it is so horrifying that the terrorized side is
often willing to give in.
However, this only perpetuates the problem. The taking of
hostages is an example. The
reason any group would take hostages is to exchange them for
some other thing which
they couldn't otherwise get. By giving in to this game, the
terrorists felt that hostage
taking is effective and easy, and will continue to take hostages
to achieve their goals.
By not conceding to the demands of terrorists, it may not
eliminate, but will decrease
the likelihood of a terrorist action happening again.
As is true in any political situation, both sides must be
weighted and, if giving in to
demands is less costly than the worst possible consequences of
not giving in, then it is
necessary to compromise. If however, the long term benefit of
obstinance exceeds tha
of concession, it is essential to remain firm against the
temptation of compromise. All
8/9/2019 AAMC 4 Essay 2
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of this is assuming both parties involved have equal power. Once
the equality of power
set off base, it is always the less powerful one which will need
to compromise more to
achieve its goal.
SCORE = 2
Explanation of score:
Clarity and focus are the major problems hampering this
response. Though it demonstrates fairly golanguage use and control
of mechanics, the essays arguments and examples are confusing,
stray fro
the topic, and do not cohere into a fully comprehensible
response to the writing assignment. The poi
of the first paragraphthat it is difficult to know whether or
not a politician has compromisedis
obscured by the example the writer offers, rather than made
clear. The writer claims that the Senator
ostensibly compromised but essentially did not, but fails to
clearly explain this distinction.
Moreover, the very existence of such a distinction seems to
contradict the paragraphs central
assertion that it is often unknown whether a politician is
compromising or not. The entire discussi
only serves to leave the reader perplexed.
The second paragraphs attempt to address Task 2 loses focus. An
absolute refusal to give in toterrorist demands certainly qualifies
as uncompromising, but who is the politician in this example, a
what are his or her political goals? The writer fails to clearly
explain this illustrations relevance to t
prompt, instead getting sidetracked into a discussion of
terrorism that is only marginally relevant to
the prompt.
With two unclear and unrelated discussions in the first two
paragraphs, there is little the writer can d
in the third to make this essay cohere. The language in the
concluding paragraph is vague and
ungrounded. The reader is left unsure as to why political
compromise might be a temptation, or to
whomthe parties involved and their goals are undefined. Overall,
the essay represents an attempat addressing the writing assignment,
but suffers from incoherence stemming from problems with
clarity and focus.
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