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28 Aug 2015, 11:25
Kudos
Bookmarks
Candidate: Our city's students have suffered long enough. Over the mayor's four years in office, our district's math and science scores have hovered well below the national average, even while our average teacher's salary has increased. Our student-per-class ratio is laughable, yet he has made no progress on building a new school. He simply cannot be trusted with our children's future; if you care about education, I am the only candidate you can support.
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
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The argument claims that Candidate is the only candidate who can provide decent education for the city on the basis of current mayor's failure to do the same. The argument depicts dire state of current education system in the city. Average grade in the city are well below national average along with lower emphasis on science and maths. As part of evidence it is mentioned student per class ratio is extremely high. Argument very well describes poor state of current education system but it lags in providing complete picture of education system covering all the main streams and not just maths and science. Also, argument confuses with current mayor's failure with new candidate's competence and willingness for education betterment.
First, argument fails to describe current education system along all the streams.There is no mention of other fields such as arts, language or commerce. A city can have students not so interested in science but very well doing in other educational fields such as arts or language. Just because students have grades below national average, it does not prove the education system is failing. If students have passion for arts and other fields instead of science, a great math teacher might be successful in keeping the students enrolled in class and scoring passing grades but at the end, it is student's passion, will and interest which will take him further in his career. A high student per class ration can be negative factor but not necessarily have to be. Many classes perform better because of greater variety of skills, interests, curiosity that a higher number of students per class brings.
Second, argument assumes mayor is at fault for education system not performing well in few of the fields. How ever there is no concrete evidence that mayor is responsible for the situation. On the contrary it seems, mayor has increased teacher's salary or at least did not oppose for it so teacher can perform better in class with fulfilled needs and higher morale. Education system could be in tatters before mayor even begin his tenure at office. His efforts to fix the education system or bring it at par in all fields could take years to show it's effect.
Third, there is no information about the new candidate. Argument does not mention any of his ability. There is no evidence of his competence or any skills that he possess over current mayor's ability. His word to improve education system at best shows his willingness to work on weak areas.
All in all, this conclusion that new candidate is panacea of all problems in education system is over assuming. Had there been sufficient evidence of his abilities for example a mention of his experience or past case studies argument would have weighed better but pointing finger at current candidate for all we see and perceive wrong is nothing but a typical political scenario. Argument handles well sentiment of voters by saying "if you care about education" but nevertheless invoking emotion by itself not sufficient for candidate's ability to make education system any better. Also, Candidate did not mention any of his proposals or ideas on how he plans to fill the gaps in current education system. There is no mention of building new school just the current problem. Argument is weak in drawing the conclusion that candidate could be anything but better for future education.
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
#################################################################################################################################
The argument claims that Candidate is the only candidate who can provide decent education for the city on the basis of current mayor's failure to do the same. The argument depicts dire state of current education system in the city. Average grade in the city are well below national average along with lower emphasis on science and maths. As part of evidence it is mentioned student per class ratio is extremely high. Argument very well describes poor state of current education system but it lags in providing complete picture of education system covering all the main streams and not just maths and science. Also, argument confuses with current mayor's failure with new candidate's competence and willingness for education betterment.
First, argument fails to describe current education system along all the streams.There is no mention of other fields such as arts, language or commerce. A city can have students not so interested in science but very well doing in other educational fields such as arts or language. Just because students have grades below national average, it does not prove the education system is failing. If students have passion for arts and other fields instead of science, a great math teacher might be successful in keeping the students enrolled in class and scoring passing grades but at the end, it is student's passion, will and interest which will take him further in his career. A high student per class ration can be negative factor but not necessarily have to be. Many classes perform better because of greater variety of skills, interests, curiosity that a higher number of students per class brings.
Second, argument assumes mayor is at fault for education system not performing well in few of the fields. How ever there is no concrete evidence that mayor is responsible for the situation. On the contrary it seems, mayor has increased teacher's salary or at least did not oppose for it so teacher can perform better in class with fulfilled needs and higher morale. Education system could be in tatters before mayor even begin his tenure at office. His efforts to fix the education system or bring it at par in all fields could take years to show it's effect.
Third, there is no information about the new candidate. Argument does not mention any of his ability. There is no evidence of his competence or any skills that he possess over current mayor's ability. His word to improve education system at best shows his willingness to work on weak areas.
All in all, this conclusion that new candidate is panacea of all problems in education system is over assuming. Had there been sufficient evidence of his abilities for example a mention of his experience or past case studies argument would have weighed better but pointing finger at current candidate for all we see and perceive wrong is nothing but a typical political scenario. Argument handles well sentiment of voters by saying "if you care about education" but nevertheless invoking emotion by itself not sufficient for candidate's ability to make education system any better. Also, Candidate did not mention any of his proposals or ideas on how he plans to fill the gaps in current education system. There is no mention of building new school just the current problem. Argument is weak in drawing the conclusion that candidate could be anything but better for future education.
31 Aug 2015, 12:12
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hey,
I feel your argument has a decent amount of reasoning, though there are a few things I would like to point out.
The overall structure and flow of the argument is a little haphazard, and there are a few too many issues with grammar and sentence structure. Maybe a few more minutes spent on analysing the typed response and editing parts of the essay would have significantly minimised this issue. Further, the GMAT rewards essays which have a decent number of relevant examples for every point raised, an aspect which I found slightly lacking in your response!
With more practice, I'm sure the quality of your essays will improve, and for this particular essay I would give a rating of 4-4.5!
Kudos if you feel the feedback helped, and best of luck!:)
I feel your argument has a decent amount of reasoning, though there are a few things I would like to point out.
The overall structure and flow of the argument is a little haphazard, and there are a few too many issues with grammar and sentence structure. Maybe a few more minutes spent on analysing the typed response and editing parts of the essay would have significantly minimised this issue. Further, the GMAT rewards essays which have a decent number of relevant examples for every point raised, an aspect which I found slightly lacking in your response!
With more practice, I'm sure the quality of your essays will improve, and for this particular essay I would give a rating of 4-4.5!
Kudos if you feel the feedback helped, and best of luck!:)
31 Aug 2015, 17:10
Kudos
Bookmarks
you are right. i was already on last 5 minutes when i was finishing the conclusion. I did not proof read 
Thanks very much. Absolutely helpful feedback.
Thanks very much. Absolutely helpful feedback.
