<p>Prompt</p>
<p>Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.</p>
<p>While some people promote competition as the only way to achieve success, others emphasize the power of cooperation. Intense rivalry at work or play or engaging in competition involving ideas or skills may indeed drive people either to avoid failure or to achieve important victories. In a complex world, however, cooperation is much more likely to produce significant, lasting accomplishments.</p>
<p>Assignment:</p>
<p>Do people achieve more success by cooperation than by competition? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<p>Cooperation with others is a quality driven into society, even at a young age. People often belief that one has to be able to work well with others to succeed in life. However, history has shown that competition may in fact be a better driving force towards success than cooperation. Project Manhattan, John Keat's work "On the Grasshopper and the Cricket" and economic systems are examples which reinforce the idea that competition may after all be the best driving force to success.</p>
<p>Project Manhattan was founded in 1940 when the "Father of modern Physics", Albert Einstein, wrote a letter into President Roosevelt regarding Germany's growing nuclear supply, presumably due to trying to create nuclear weapons. As nuclear weapons had not yet been discovered, it was clear that whoever had control over the first nuclear weapon would have power over the world. The competition between countries to be the first to create a nuclear weapon evidently led to the success of the United States of America inventing it and ending the second world war. </p>
<p>John Keat's work "On the Grasshopper and the Cricket" is also a classic example of competition. This poetic piece of literature was written by John Keats in his early 20s where he made a bet with a close friend that whoever wrote the better poem in 15 minutes would win the bet. Keats wrote this poem in 15 minutes, it self being an extended metaphor to competition where the grasshopper and the cricket fight against summer and winter respectively. The bet between Keats and his friend led to the creation of this poem which has gone down in history as to being one of the best pieces in time, hence exhibiting how competition helps encourage success. </p>
<p>Competition is often seen in our modern world of affluence as well where economic systems as well as companies fight to be the most successful in a free market, the most competitive of them often coming out on top. This also holds true for countries, an example Singapore. Singapore has a very competitive market environment which is one of the many main factors to why the small island has been very successful in the South- East Asian region. </p>
<p>Hence it is obvious from these reasoning that competition may actually be a better encouragement to success than cooperation. Competition should not be shun down by society as a sin that places pressure on individuals, but should be looked upon as encouragement to succeed. As the saying goes "too many cooks spoil the broth" - too many people working together may halt the progress to success.</p>
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<p>I wrote this within the time limit on paper and typed it onto the computer if any of you are wondering. I'm not exactly sure if this fills the page because I'm an international student so I am unable to get the same sized lined paper as the states so an estimation to my word count would be greatly appreciated.
This is my first essay so it'd be really helpful if you could give me a score so I may bench mark future ones. Thanks.</p>