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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 nonsmokers. 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 or
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 that
of concession, it is essential to remain firm against the temptation of compromise. All

of this is assuming both parties involved have equal power. Once the equality of power is
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 good
language use and control of mechanics, the essays arguments and examples are confusing, stray from
the topic, and do not cohere into a fully comprehensible response to the writing assignment. The point
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 discussion
only serves to leave the reader perplexed.
The second paragraphs attempt to address Task 2 loses focus. An absolute refusal to give in to
terrorist demands certainly qualifies as uncompromising, but who is the politician in this example, and
what are his or her political goals? The writer fails to clearly explain this illustrations relevance to the
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 do
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 attempt
at addressing the writing assignment, but suffers from incoherence stemming from problems with
clarity and focus.

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