Welcome to GMAT Club!
AWA Score: 4.5 out of 6!
I have used a GMATAWA auto-grader to evaluate your essay. I don't think you have need to write so much, the text is more than required. The big flaw in the essay is paragraph structuring and formation.
Coherence and connectivity: 5/5
This rating corresponds to the flow of ideas and expressions from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analyzed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.
Paragraph structure and formation: 1.5/5
The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs are evaluated. To score well on this parameter, it is important to organize the attempt into paragraphs. Preferable to follow the convention of leaving a line blank at the end of each paragraph, to make the software aware of the structure of the essay.
Vocabulary and word expression: 3.5/5
This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocabulary possessed by the candidate basis the word and expression usage. There are no extra- points for bombastic word usage. Simple is the best form of suave!
Follow the AWA forum rules for your next post here in the AWA forum, read the rules in the post in the link below.
https://gmatclub.com/forum/awa-forum-ru ... 64141.htmlGood Luckkaranvikram wrote:
Question
The following appeared in a memorandum from a member of a financial management and consulting firm:
“We have learned from an employee of Windfall, Ltd., that its accounting department, by checking about 10 percent of the last month’s purchasing invoices for errors and inconsistencies, saved the company some $10,000 in overpayments. In order to help our clients increase their profitability, we should advise each of them to institute a policy of checking all purchasing invoices for errors. Such a recommendation could also help us get the Windfall account by demonstrating to Windfall the rigorousness of our methods.”
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.
Answer
The argument claims that the member of the Financial Management and consulting firm believes that by advising it’s clients to institute a policy of checking all purchasing invoices for errors and inconsistencies based on Windfall Ltd’s accounting department’s finding last month could help the firm's clients increase net gains and eventually help get the Windfall account by demonstrating the firm’s effectiveness. Stated in this way the member’s argument manipulates facts and conveys a distorted view of the situation as well as fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated conclusively. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is weak/unconvincing and has several flaws.
First, the argument readily assumes that 10% of the invoices constitute a significant amount of the total number of invoices audited by Windfall. This statement is a stretch because the argument fails to provide evidence of the total number of invoices audited by the accounts department for that month. For example, if the accounts department audited a total 20 purchase invoices last month and re-audited 10% it would save the $10,000 from 2 invoices. However, if the accounts department audited a total of 20,000 purchase invoices last month and re-audited 10% it would save the $10,000 from re-auditing 2000 invoices. In this situation it would be important to understand how significant the saving of $10,000 dollars is in comparison with the surplus finances spent on the extra-hours of re-auditing 2000 invoices. In the latter case, it would mean a decrease in profitability. Clearly, if had the argument provided an additional data point it would have presented a much clearer view of the situation.
Second, the argument claims that the member of the Financial Management firm believes that by advising the firm’s clients to institute a policy of checking all purchasing invoices for errors it would help them increase their profitability. This suggestion is based on the assumption that a significant number or most of the firm's clients deal with a similar nature of purchase invoices based on Windfall Ltd’s finding. Also, the member of the firm assumes that most of the firm's clients do not already have such a policy in place for additional scrutiny of invoices. In this situation the firm’s recommendation would not have any bearing on their client’s profitability.
This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between the nature of Windfall Ltd’s work and the work of the Consulting firm’s clients.
To illustrate, if Windfall Ltd’s nature of work is selling Custom ASIC’s which is an expensive, complex piece of equipment and has several hundred thousand of line items per invoice. It would be useful to understand how the product is priced compared to the savings earned by re-auditing the invoice.
Since it has a huge BoM it would take considerably longer to re-audit and would require additional man hours costing the firm more than what they could have saved.
On the contrary if company XYZ, one of the firm's client’s, who are into sale of mobile phones which are considerably cheaper and have a few line items per invoice would implement this policy it may have a considerable saving re-auditing 10% of its invoices. This again relies on assumptions of transaction volumes vis-a-vis total number of invoices. Had the argument had provided further evidence then the argument would have been a lot more convincing.
Finally, How credible is the claim of the employee from Windfall Ltd? Does the employee reporting this finding have an overall picture of Windfall Ltd’s finances? Did the employee take into consideration the additional finances required for the extra round of scrutiny?
Understanding the reliability of the source is of paramount importance while considering policy implementation. Without convincing answers to these questions, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
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 about the total number of invoices audited in addition to percentages. In order to assess the merits of a certain situation/decision, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors. In this particular case it would be helpful to know the correlation between the nature of work of Windfall Ltd and the firm's Clients. Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.