Sample Essay Question and Answer Based on a Reading Passage

Here is a well-developed answer, based solely on the reading passage about Piaget’s stages of development, to the question below. Note that the answer is developed in TREE paragraphs and that the writer has had to supply examples where none were given in the original paragraph.

Essay Question: Discuss Piaget’s stages of development and give detailed examples of activity in each stage.

Piaget identified four phases of mental development in children. The first or sensorimotor stage lasts from birth to about eighteen months.  In this stage, children operate on a physical level and cannot deal with symbols. For example, unable to speak words, babies cry when they are hungry or when they want to be changed.

In the preoperational stage, from one and a half years until age six or seven, children begin to use language, symbols and mental imagery. In this phase, children learn to speak, read and write. However, they are simply learning basic literacy; comprehending a person’s life story and putting events in order would be a challenge. In addition, they cannot accommodate the viewpoint of others.  They feel as if they are the center of the universe. Thus, children at this age would be most likely to refuse to share a toy.  Instead, they would prefer to play a game by themselves.

Next comes the concrete operational stage, from age six or seven until about age eleven.  In this phase, children recognize ordered patterns, so they can relate a day’s events in sequence instead of as a random list of separate details. They also understand the idea of reversibility.  For instance, a chair turned around with its back facing a child can still be identified as a chair. Finally, they can classify items in a variety of ways.  A ball might be thought of in several different ways: as a toy, as a thing I own, as a round object and as an item that is blue.

The last or formal operational stage begins around age eleven. Young people can at last think abstractly and engage in scientific thought.  For example, they can complete a statement like “If it is dark in the daytime, it is __________ at night” with the word “light.”  Or they can develop and test a hypothesis about why they have an allergic reaction if they are near a cat or if a certain pollen is in the air.

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