Dear GMAT club members,
Can anyone evaluate following AWA? Please evaluate my AWA
Sajjad1994----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city’s council on the arts:
“In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our city’s art museums has increased by a similar percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television, where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened with severe cuts, we can expect that attendance at our city’s art museums will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city’s funds for supporting the arts should be reallocated to public television.”-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The memorandum issued by the city's council on arts is a call to action, requesting reallocation of city's funds meant for supporting arts to public television. This call to action is based on council's reasoning, which can be summarised as:
1. In the preceeding five years, the number of residents who watch television programs about visual arts have increased by 15%, which is the same percent by which art museum's visitorship has increased.
2. Now that television's visual art programs are being threatened with funding cuts, attendance at city's museum will also see a decline.
To arrest this decline, there thus needs to be reallocation of some of funds meant for supporting arts to public television.
While everyone would agree with council's underlying concern that currrent level of visitorship at museum should be maintained, and any potential decline in visitorship should be promptly addressed, the council has put forth extremely poor reasonings and arguments in support of their stance.
The biggest flaw in the council's arguement is that council seems to mix correlation with causation. A 15% increase in people watching television programs about visual arts and museum visitorship does not imply that increase is on account of television views. The council fails to study the reason which makes people visit museums or consider any alternate explanation for increase in museum's patrons. Perhaps people who watch visual arts programs do not visit museums since they have obtained necessary information about arts from the television program. Perhaps patrons who visit museums are people who do not have access to television program and hence they visit museums. Or people who visit museum are patrons who truely appreciate museum's collection. Or it could even be possible that people who visit city's museums are tourist from other cities.
Another flaw in museum's arguement is needless catastropization - decline in funding shall bring about corresponding decline in visitorship. The council has failed to establish any significant linkage between watching television programs and visiting museum. In absence of evidence establishing the same, to conclude that funding decline shall reduce museum's visitorship reeks of unnecessary catastropization. It may very well be possible that patrons who currently visit museum are quite impressed with museum's collection and would continue supporting it even after television programs go off-air.
As stated previously, while council's underlying concern is appreciable, the arguments made are extremely poor. And based on such poor reasoning council wants to part with funds meant directly for supporting arts. Council may address its concerns by exploring alternatives - rather than diverting funds to television programs council can utilise these funds to acqire new arts that would draw more visitors, or council could run an arts awareness campaign aimed directly towards drawing patrons to museums, or running television adverts in absence of specifc television programs.