This is my first ever attempt with AWA. Can expert please help me assess what score can I possibly expect with this attempt?
chineseburned GMATNinjaThe following paragraph recently appeared in an editorial printed in the opinion section of a local newspaper:
The recent surge in violence in the southern part of the city is a result of a shortage of police officers and an absence of leadership on the part of the city council. In order to rectify the burgeoning growth of crime that threatens the community, the city council must address this issue seriously. Instead of spending time on peripheral issues such as education quality, community vitality, and job opportunity, the city council must realize that the crime issue is serious and double the police force, even if this action requires budget cuts from other city programs.
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and use the 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 refuse 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 states that the recent surge in violence in a part of the city was a result of shortage of police officers and absence of leadership role from city council, hence requiring a serious address by doubling the police force despite this resulting in budget cuts in other programs like education quality, community vitality, and job opportunity. This argument fails to provide any evidence on the actual number of police forces available in the city as against the required numbers and also vaguely states that the city council failed on its leadership. Further it does not show any evidence on the chances of success and also assumes that putting resources in one sector at the cost of others will not create other sorts of problems. Hence, this argument is flawed and can be strengthened.
First, the argument states that the recent growth in crimes were caused primarily because of absence of leadership role from the city council without mentioning what were the part of responsibilities and where did the city council lack thereof. Further, it also presents the shortage of police officers as the cause of the event, however, failing to show how many police officers are actually present in the part of city in question and is that number less in relation to certain parameter. Without the evidence the argument is merely a strong subjective opinion against the council and the police force.
Secondly, the argument strongly claims that doubling the police force at the cost of other programs like education quality, community vitality and job opportunity will not disrupt those aspects of the city thus requiring no policing. In many other times ignoring a sector of a community has led to chaos and creating other types of violence that also requires police force to control it. It clearly assumes that simply drawing budget off these sectors will leave these sectors without any negative consequences. This leap of faith makes the argument weaker and could have been strengthened if only the author had prescribed a length of time for budget channeling to increase police force, and mentioned the status of the health of those sectors thus pointing that they would remain unaffected despite budget cuts.
Third, the strong expectation of positive results by doubling the police force is an assumption without any evidence and hence is a stretch. The argument fails to first mention the nature of crime and show if those types of crimes actually needed police efforts. For example, domestic violence as a result of alcohol abuse could rather be effectively addressed by controlling the supply of alcohol in the city, community-based family counselling with a moderate police force. Any parallel example of other cities or places where merely increasing the number of police for that nature of crime has had a positive result in curbing the crime effectively would have made the argument effective. In the absence of this, the conclusion seems to be a strong leap.
In conclusion, the argument by failing to state the nature of crime and evidence of success potential of the efforts, and also assuming that the effort would not have any retaliation from other sectors whose budget is in question, gives an unsubstantiated conclusion based on weak evidence. The evidence mentioned above could have been used to further make the argument stronger.