Argumentative Essay Example (With Line-by-Line Breakdown)

An argumentative essay takes a defensible position on a debated question and supports it with evidence, while honestly engaging with the strongest objection. The goal is not to beat the other side into submission — it is to give a reader enough reason to update their view, or at least to respect the position. The three things readers grade on are: is the thesis arguable, is the evidence specific, and is the counterargument handled fairly.

Example essay

Illustrative example — figures, citations, and names may not represent real studies or people. Verify before quoting.

Standardized Testing Should Remain Optional for College Admissions

When the University of California dropped the SAT in 2020, the decision was framed as a temporary response to a pandemic testing scarcity. Five years later, the permanence of that shift has exposed something the pandemic was only the pretext for: the information a test score carries is genuinely smaller than admissions departments once believed, and the harm it does to first-generation and low-income applicants is genuinely larger. Standardized testing should remain optional, not because tests measure nothing, but because the marginal signal they add does not justify the filter they impose. The standard defense of the SAT is that it correlates with first-year college grades. It does — a 2023 meta-analysis by Dynarski and colleagues put the correlation at roughly 0.35, which is meaningful. But the same analysis showed that high school GPA carried a correlation of 0.45, and adding the SAT on top of GPA improved prediction by only four percentage points of variance. That is the signal the test is actually providing once GPA is already on the table. The marketing of the SAT as an independent predictor obscures how much of its work is already done by the transcript. Against that small marginal gain sits a large and well-documented cost. SAT prep is priced as a consumer good. A 2022 Georgetown study found that students in households above $100,000 a year averaged 2.1 paid prep sessions and 86 self-study hours, compared with 0.4 and 31 for students under $40,000. The score gap that opens up is not a gap in aptitude — it is a gap in access to a commercial prep industry, and treating it as aptitude is treating the market as merit. The strongest objection to keeping tests optional is not ideological; it is methodological. Defenders argue that optional testing lets stronger candidates self-select in and weaker ones self-select out, so the admitted pool ends up statistically better than the applicant pool. That is partially true. Admitted students at schools like MIT, which returned to requiring the SAT, do post higher first-year GPAs on average than the test-optional years. But the comparison hides the selection effect that made optional testing worthwhile in the first place: the students who were deterred from even applying because of the cost of the test, most of whom never appear in either comparison. The right question is not whether the admitted pool looks stronger on paper; it is whether the applicant pool represents the students colleges actually want to reach. Test-optional policies do not claim to measure nothing. They claim that the thing measured is already largely captured in the transcript, and the price of that last four percent of variance is paid by the students colleges most say they want to recruit. That is a trade-off I would not make, and it is a trade-off the data supports refusing.

Breakdown

Opening move — frames the debate tightly
When the University of California dropped the SAT in 2020, the decision was framed as a temporary response to a pandemic testing scarcity.

A specific institution, a specific date, a specific policy change. The opening does not announce the topic — it drops the reader into a particular moment that the rest of the essay will explain. This is much stronger than "Standardized testing has been debated for decades."

Thesis — states the position and the reason
Standardized testing should remain optional, not because tests measure nothing, but because the marginal signal they add does not justify the filter they impose.

The thesis is arguable (reasonable people disagree), specific (it takes a position on optionality, not on abolition), and gives the reader the reason in one sentence. The "not because X, but because Y" structure preempts the weakest version of the opposing view.

Evidence paragraph — specific numbers, named source
A 2023 meta-analysis by Dynarski and colleagues put the correlation at roughly 0.35... adding the SAT on top of GPA improved prediction by only four percentage points of variance.

Numbers with a named source carry more weight than unsourced claims. Note also that the essay concedes the test does carry signal — this concession buys credibility for the later argument that the signal is not large enough.

Counterargument — steelmanned, not strawmanned
The strongest objection to keeping tests optional is not ideological; it is methodological. Defenders argue that optional testing lets stronger candidates self-select in...

The essay names the best version of the opposing view and credits it as "the strongest objection." A weak essay would pick the worst version to knock down. A strong essay engages the best one, because that is the one a serious reader will actually raise.

Rebuttal — addresses the objection without dismissing it
The comparison hides the selection effect that made optional testing worthwhile in the first place: the students who were deterred from even applying...

The rebuttal concedes part of the objection (admitted students do post higher GPAs under required testing) and then redirects to the selection effect the objection misses. This is more persuasive than a flat rejection.

Closing — restates and extends without summarizing
That is a trade-off I would not make, and it is a trade-off the data supports refusing.

The closing does not recap — it lands a judgment and names the stakes. A weak conclusion would begin with "In conclusion, the SAT has pros and cons." This one takes a position and leaves it standing.

Writing tips

Pick a thesis that a reasonable person could disagree with. Find three or four pieces of specific evidence — named studies, concrete numbers, dated events — before you start drafting. Write the counterargument paragraph in the form your actual opponents would recognize, not the form that is easiest to beat. End with a judgment, not a recap. If you follow that outline, the essay will read like argument, not like book report.

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