GRE作文点评：开启我们的辨证思维（一）.

　　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 speaker‘s 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 chi 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 bore 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 benits are immediate and predictable can break any new ground, or whether it can be considered "research" at all.

　　在第二段，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 bore 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 benits are too speculative. After all, expensive research always carries significant opportunity costsin terms of how the money might be spent toward addressing society‘s more immediate problems that do not require research. One apt illustration of this point involves the so-called "Star Wars" dense 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 lt with rampant gang violence, an AIDS epidemic, and an unprecedented federal budget dicit.

　　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。