I have practiced some AWAs without being timed, actually looking at some templates from the forums or from
Magoosh just to get a feel for actually discussing the argument presented instead of forming my own opinion (like most timed essays I've had to do before) so this is my first one done while timed and without any outside resources. The source is one of the
Manhattan GMAT CATs.
The following appeared in a corporate memorandum of a beverage manufacturer:
“Our promotional price reductions on energy drinks have been highly successful, as we have seen a dramatic increase in unit sales. Further, surveys of our consumers indicate that this promotion was favorably received by the majority of our customers. Therefore, to improve our company’s profitability and enhance its perception in the eyes of consumers, similar price reductions should be offered on all drinks produced by our firm.” The argument presented in the corporate memorandum contains flaws in logic and easily debatable underlying assumptions. It could use better supporting evidence, and could be strengthened with more specific facts and terminology.
The argument first assumes that all drinks will experience sales patterns that are similar to those of energy drinks. It is possible that the type of customer who buys an energy drink from X company may be part of an entirely different demographic than those who purchase products from their other lines. These different demographics may not be as responsive to sales prices as the energy drink customers are. The argument also assumes, without doing any further research, that a decrease in price will cause a profitable increase in demand for all of the drinks in their product line.
While the surveys show that the price reductions on energy drinks were favorably received by the majority of their customers, they only focus on that particular promotion with that particular product. The evidence fails to show that the customers who drink the other beverages that company X offers would respond in a similar way. If the author of the memorandum had included a survey that took its data from a variety of customers instead of just energy drink customers, we may be able to draw the conclusion that all customers of company X would purchase more beverages if there were promotional price reductions. Since the survey only focused on the energy drink promotion, and not other potential beverage promotions, it is not wise to infer that since a sale works on one product line it will work on all of them.
The argument is weak due to its underlying assumptions that all of company X's product lines experience sales patterns similar to that of the energy drink line, and that a promotional decrease in price in other products would result in an increase in demand across the board. It also contains flaws such as not conducting a survey that focuses on the demographics that consume all of the non-energy drink beverages. The author could strengthen this argument by suggesting that the company conduct more research before implementing this idea. Company X could conduct further surveys, focusing on the customers who consume beverages that are not energy drinks, and do research focusing on if price and demand patterns in one product can predict similar patterns in other products in the same company.