In general, people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago

Cool ! I am just in time. Well the first essay is the crux of the awa. I think you are pretty good in nailing those. If you have written this in 30 mins - I am sure you will get a perfect score on the awa. Just keep this that way ! All the best !

Hey one this you can improve in the first para - why not say it aloud - the author's reasoning suffers from two critical errors or four critical errors. That way the reader knows how many flaws you are going to evaluate. All the best !

Please rate my essay! I know I am making typing mistakes:(

The write has made a claim that people are not concerned about their intake of read meat and fatty cheese. Firstly, this claim is not supported by any evidence. Secondly the evidence provided for his claim is either incomplete or misses many critical aspects.

The writer has made a claim that people are not concerned about their intake of read meat and fatty cheese as they were a decade ago. Firstly the writer needs to establish that what is he referring to when he talks about "people". Is he referring to the inhabitants of a certain city e.g. London, or some country etc.? Secondly to support this claim the writer first needs to show what was the consumption per person of read meat a decade ago and what is it now. Without making such a comparison the writer's claim is not establlished. Secondly he can do a survey of people and ask their opinion of what they think about the healthy food options (organic fruits, vegetable etc.) vs read meat and fatty cheese. This will also give him an idea about whether people are actually concerned as well, irrespective of their consumption. Because people can be genuinely concerned but might still be consuming read meat and fatty cheese because of factors like availability, price etc. If there are few shops that provide organic fruit and it is expensive as well as compared to red meat, although unlikely, will make people prefer read meat and fatty cheese over organic fruit and vegetables

Secondly the writer supports him claim by giving two examples. One is of Heart's Delight. A store that originally started selling organic fruits and vegetables but then also offered cheese. Firstly the writer cannot conclude any thing on people's preference based on one or few shops. He has to take a large sample to justify his claim. For example if he is talking about a city that has a 100,00 shops divided into 100 localities, he needs to take atleast one large shop per locality to have a representative sample size. Secondly He needs to consider what is the revenue of this shop that is coming from organic fruits and vegetables and what is coming from cheese. This will give an idea about people's preference who visit this particular shop. Secondly the writer needs to look at other variables that might have led to this shop offering cheese. For example, they might have found a low cost supplier of cheese. So without considering all these factors that writer cannot support his claim

The second example he gives if of two shops, Good Earth Cafe and House beef. He claims that Good Earth Cafe is making a modest living and House Beef has become millionaires which proves that people are not concerned about their intake of red meat and fatty cheese. Here again the writer is relying on faulty assumptions and missing important points which are necessary to establish this claim. Firstly this Cafe is located next door to another shop, Heart's Delight that is selling the similar products (organic fruits, vegetables etc.). It might be the case that people are buying from Heart's Delight and Heart's Delight is making a lot of money from it's organic food section: Much more then the Beef shop. Secondly there might be many shops in that locaility that are selling organic food and this Beef Shop might be the only one in the locality. So as stated above, the writer needs to take a larger sample size to establish high arguments. Thirdly their could be other reasons for poor sale of the Good Earth Cafe like poor food quality etc.

To make a robust and sound argument the writer needs to do two things. Firstly he needs to establish his argument. This will invovle defining what is he referring to as "people". Gathering data and interviewing people to establish people are not concerned and comparing this to data and opinion a decade ago. Secondly he needs to increase the sample size of the stores and look at other reasons why certain stores might not be performing well. Only then he can make this claim

Using the unofficial AWA grader GMATAWA, here is what I have:




Please do not forget to use the Chineseburnt AWA Template!
https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6 ... 64327.html

Please rate mine as well


The arugment claims that people are not as concerned about their intake of read meat and fatty cheeses as they are a decade ago. Stating that author provides his two observations - Fatty cheeses in Heart's Global and financial status of Owners of Old cafe and House of Beefs. The argument fails to consider several key factors and came to a hasty conclusion with just a couple of observations.

First, the author observes introduction of fatty cheeses in Heart's Delight and concludes people are not concerned about intake of fatty cheeses. However, there is no correlative data provided to conclude that fatty cheeses consumption increased significantly at individual level from a decade ago. It may happen that people are consuming in very minimal quantities. If the author adds any data that strengthens the conclusion that existence of fatty cheese indeed resulted in high consumption it definitely helps.

Second, the author compares Old cafe vegetarian shop and house of beef interms of financial position of their owners. The comparison is not sound.For example,House of Beef owners may be millionaires in the past as well. It can so happen, Old cafe owners may be donating considerable amount of his earnings to charity. One need to compare the amount of quantity being sold. Even then comparing just two shops does not provide a good representative sample. At the same time, one need to know the density of organic and vegetable shops with respect to red meat shops. If only one read meat shop is available in the neighbourhood then its sales will be high compared to high density organic and vegetable shops.

Finally, the argument has to be backed by a fact finding study and then author can strengthen the argument with his observations considering a good representative sample size.

In summary, the observations can lead to multiple theories. Without backed by any substantiative data the argument is weak and unconvincing. It has no legs to stand and conclusion is high questionable with the premises mentioned in the argument.

Please rate

The author of the argument claims that in general, people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheese. The conclusion of the argument is based on the flawed assumptions and ignores other possibilities. Therefore, the argument is weak.
The author fails to consider that the skills of the people running the businesses are an important factor. The owners of the House of Beef might be really good at running business and serve one of the best food in town whereas owners of the Heart's Delight and Good Earth Cafe might not be be good at running business and do not serve food that appease people. The argument doesn't reveal all kind of food and other services that are offered by cafes. It is possible that these other services and food are the major source of revenue of the owners of House of Beef. It is also possible that owners of Good Earth Cafe might be losing money on the other services that are not faring well. There is a possibility that the owners of the Good Earth Cafe might have invested money in the new machinery or in the renovation of the cafe.
The argument fails to consider that people can choose other cafes that serve organic food located in other parts of the town. Most of the people who prefer organic food over red meat choose to dine at other cafes.
Without complete information and evidences, the author fails to provide a strong argument. Therefore, the argument is weak.

Someone please rate my essay as well.

The argument mentioned above states that today people are less concerned than they were a decade ago about their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses. It cites certain points to come to this conclusion. But the argument is flawed and is based on certain assumptions.

Firstly, the argument says that the Heart's Delight, a store that started selling organic fruits and vegetables and whole-grain flours in the 1960s, has a wide selection of cheeses made with high butterfat content. But here the argument assumes that if the store has a wide selection of cheeses, the customers are buying a lot. Maybe the sales of those cheeses are very less and only a few customers buy those which would mean rest are buying the healthy food items mentioned in the argument like organic fruits and vegetables and whole-grain flours. Therefore, the argument needs to do some research and mention the stats about the sales of those high butterfat content cheeses.

Secondly, the argument also gives another comparison between two restaurant owners. First are the owners of the Good Earth cafe, which is an old vegetarian restaurant and second are the owners of the new House of Beef. The argument then tells that the owners of the new House of Beef are millionaires but we can't just assume that the only source of income of those owners is selling beef. Maybe they also do some other businesses which are their primary source of income and selling beef is their side business. This doubt is not cleared in the argument.

So, the argument mentioned above is clearly not convincing of the fact that today people are less concerned than they were a decade ago about their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses. The author of the argument needs to do some more research to bring in some facts and information which will strengthen his conclusion.

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The argument is primarily based on commenting on the changing lifestyle of general public by drawing a correlation with the performance and offerings of restaurants.The argument takes 3 restaurants as a sample, to evaluate the changes in their offerings and sales over a decade. The findings are then used to comment on the trends in lifestyle of public at large to conclude that people are not concerned as they were a decade ago about regulating thier intake of red mear and fatty cheeses.Stated in this way, teh argument manipulates facts and conveys a distorted view of the situation.The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence the argument is unconvincing and has several flaws.

First, the argument readily assumes that the growth in sales of a particular restaurant is indicative of a macro consumption trend applicable to general public at large.This statement is a stretch. For example,an increase in sales of a cake shop in a nearby locality does not necessarily imply that the world is consuming more of cake. Clearly,it is a classic case of misrepresentative sample leading to inaccurate conclusions.The argument could have been much clearer if it followed a scientific method of sample selection of a reasonable size, before extrapolating its trends to apply to the consumption behavior of general public at large

Second, the argument claims that an increase in sales is a direct outcome of an increase in consumption.This is again a weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any other factor which may be liable for an increase/decrease in sales.To illustrate, external factors such as increasing competition in their location might be affecting sales of Hearts Delight or Good Earth Cafe.While, House of Beef, might have some competitive advantage compared to its peers, in terms of location, value proposition , price etc which might be contributing to its increase in sales.If the argument had provided evidence that other external factors remaining constant or similar across the sample, then the argument would have been a lot more convincing.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing.It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts.In order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors.In this particular case, the size of the sample, methodology used for sample selection,characteristics of the sample and other external factors affecting the sample, namely, competition, value proposition, location, goodwill etc.Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.

Good work on using the standard format. i would rate it as 4.5/6

Reasons :
1. Multiple typos in the 1st para itself. You should always have a second read to avoid such silly errors and ALWAYS ALWAYS avoid typos in 1st para.
2. The essay could be more descriptive if you had explained in 3-para format rather than the 2-para. It shows that you have better analytical thinking skills and that you are able to find critically analyse even the minute details of a case.
3. Try to put forward more examples to rest your case. Your essay seems more of a template rather than personalized essay.

You can get 4.5+ which is great

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This is my first essay, so I would ask you to rate it. Be kind! lol

Prompt
The following appeared as part of a company memorandum:
"Adopting an official code of ethics regarding business practices may in the long run do our company more harm than good in the public eye. When one of our competitors received unfavorable publicity for violating its own code of ethics, it got more attention from the media than it would have if it had had no such code. Rather than adopt an official code of ethics, therefore, we should instead conduct a publicity campaign that stresses the importance of
protecting the environment and assisting charitable organizations."

Answer
Considering the main topic as ethics and publicity, the argument presents several major flaws as it takes a company adopting a code of ethics in its businesses as something harmful. Indeed, if any employee of any level, especially from the upper management, makes a wrongdoing such a code may draw attention to the firm.

Such a code may help to identify and address minor issues internally, avoiding in most cases a “snowball effect” that may lead to an unfavorable newspaper headline. The responsibles may be dismissed in the case of breaking any important conduct rule. For instance, in a case of sexual harassment, company managers may have rules to take the abuser to the police and, if the press discovers the situation, the solution “by the book” is the right thing to do and good publicity as well.

The proposed publicity campaign is another problem in the argument as it may be seen in the public arena as “social responsibility-washing”. If the authors of the memorandum stick with their opinion that it is a good idea, the company must not only implement the campaign, but regularly engage in environmental and charity activities.

For both reasons, the argument presents major problems and the discussion above may help in handling them.

Hello, I would like to ask for opinion on rating for my essay too

Passage topic: same as OP's

The writer states that people are consuming more red meat and fatty cheeses as compared to a decade ago, given that stores are selling wide selection of cheeses made from high fat content and red meat restaurants are doing well. However, these claims relies on unsupported assumptions and are not convincing unless proven with additional evidence.

First, the writer states that people are consuming more cheeses as one store focused on organic fruits and vegetables started selling cheeses. However, including cheese in the selection does not indicate an increase in the sales of cheese and hence the consumption of cheese. Moreover, the cheese selection could have been introduced more than a decade ago and due to reasons other than increased demand for cheese. Also, the writer did not provide evidence on how many non-cheese selling stores have started to sell cheese. The change in items sold in one store cannot be representative of the entire population of stores. For these reasons, it is not convicing that consumption of cheeses went up.

Second, the writer suggests that red meat consumption has increased as sales at a beef restaurant has gone up while sales at a vegetarian restaurant has remained almost the same. This is a leap of faith assumption that more people are patronising beef restaurants. Patrons to the beef restaurant might be ordering dishes that are non-beef and hence not consuming red meat. Also, people can choose to consume other non-beef options such as chicken and seafood, not necessarily vegetarian food. Thus, it is unconvincing to conclude that modest sales of vegetarian restaurant means people are consuming more beef dishes.

To make the argument more compelling, the writer can include evidence to strengthen the consumption beliefs. For instance, data on the trend of cheese purchases at stores would be useful to determine if cheese sales and hence consumption has increased. Also, surveys on dishes ordered by patrons at restaurants will be useful to evaluate if non-beef dishes are increasingly consumed. It would also be meaningful to look at the number of beef versus non-beef restaurants. With such evidence provided, the writer can then make an informed evaluation on whether cheese and beef consumption has increased over the past decade.

Hi Hsngjoyce

Using the unofficial AWA grader GMATAWA, here is what I have:




Please do not forget to use the Chineseburnt AWA Template!
https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6 ... 64327.html

Thank you for your help! Yes I have used Chineseburnt's template, will continue to review and work on it

Hi all,

Prompt

"In general, people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses. Walk into Heart's Delight, a store that started selling organic fruits and vegetables and whole-grain flours in the 1960's, and you will also find a wide selection of cheeses made with high butterfat content. Next door, the owners of the Good Earth Cafe, an old vegetarian restaurant, are still making a modest living, but the owners of the new House of Beef across the street are millionaires."

Just started AWA prep. First attempt at writing one below. Appearing for GMAT in 5 days. Please let me know your inputs. Thanks in advance and stay safe.

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The author claims that people are not concerned about regulating their unhealthy food intake (red meat and fatty cheeses) and cites a few examples of restaurants that are selling such food (cause) are thriving financially (effect), Stated in this way the argument reveals examples of oversimplification, leap of faith and non-exhaustive considersation of other possible reasons to explain the observations of restaurants.

Firstly, the author assumes that increasing sale points of red meat and fatty cheeses is directly related to increased consumption without any evidence. For example, Heart's Delight could have ventured into burgers line of business but might still be selling much higher vegetables and whole-grain flours vs. 1960. This counters the author's view that offering cheese / burger products directly relates to more people consuming unhealthy food. Had the argument clearly stated the evidence of increasing consumption of cheese and red meat and organic healthy food vs. consumption in 1960, it would be more convincing.

Secondly, the financial success of House of Beef or financial distress of Good Earth Cafe could be the result of several other factors like quality, internal operations management, market competition, price efficiency, cost efficiency etc. The argument assumes the only reason House of Beef is thrving is because of increased demand of unhealthy food vs. Good Earth Cafe's vegetarian healthy products. For example, Good Earth Cafe might be offering inferior products and people might be buying vegetarian food from other restaurants. Had the argmument used a broader database of sale of vegetarian healthy food serving places vs. unhealthy food serving places, it would have been more convincing in its stance.

Thirdly, the argument commits the flaw of over-simplification and generalization. Using observations from 3 restaurants to come to a conclusion that applies to people in general seems to be a very far-fetched approach. As the argument stands, there is substantial lack of evidence to support the bold statement made. For example, there could be 50 other vegetarian healthy restaurants doing much better than the 2-3 mentioned. Another possibility could be the consumption of vegetarian food has increased much more than consumption of red meat and fatty cheeses.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. Had the author stated relevant facts, the argument could be considerably strengthened. In this case - take other factors into consideration for business success/failure, establish link between sale point and consumption pattern, increase/decrease in consumption of healthy food vs. unhealthy food now vs. 10 years ago etc. Without this information, t. he argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate

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On which prompt this essay is based?

I can assume the essay is based on the following prompt but please confirm it first.

"In general, people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses. Walk into Heart's Delight, a store that started selling organic fruits and vegetables and whole-grain flours in the 1960's, and you will also find a wide selection of cheeses made with high butterfat content. Next door, the owners of the Good Earth Cafe, an old vegetarian restaurant, are still making a modest living, but the owners of the new House of Beef across the street are millionaires."

Hi Sajjad,

Yes, the prompt you mentioned is the one. Thanks for taking out the time and effort to review.

Will be helpful to have your input.

Regards,
Ritwik