Hi Sajjad, Could you check mine as well?The following appeared in a magazine article on trends and lifestyles:
“In general, people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses. Walk into the Heart’s Delight, a store that started selling organic fruits and vegetables and whole-grain flours in the 1960’s, and you will also find a wide selection of cheeses made with high butterfat content. Next door, the owners of the Good Earth Café, an old vegetarian restaurant, are still making a modest living, but the owners of the new House of Beef across the street are millionaires.”
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 people are not as concerned about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses as they were a decade ago based on an organic store's product mix and profits earned by a beef store in comparison with those earned by a vegetarian restaurant. The argument is inconclusive without the pertinent data required to support the hypothesis. Stated this way, the argument manipulated facts and provides a distorted view of the situation under consideration, shows examples of a leap of faith reasoning, and fails to provide essential evidence on the basis of which the argument could be evaluated. Until the flaws are resolved, the argument can not be seen as viable. The passage below aims to elaborate on the flaws and provide potential remedies to bridge the logical gap.
First, the argument claims that people are not regulating their intake of cheese because a particular organic store is still selling different varieties of fatty cheeses. This statement is a stretch because the argument assumes that just because a single store provides a variety of cheeses, cheeses are high in demand and consumed without regulation. It also takes an example of one store and makes a general claim about supply and demand. For example, it is possible that cheeses are sold in very few stores only compared to a decade earlier to drop in demand. It is also possible that consumers are still regulating their intake of cheese to a minimal level but a lot more people who did not eat cheese before have started to consumer different varieties of cheese. Clearly, it is incorrect to take the product mix of one store to assume supply and demand trends for the entire population. The argument would be less prone to criticism if it explicitly stated that the quantity of cheese sold as a whole has been increasing over the past decade, or leveraged a wider dataset of supply trends to assume demand trends.
Second, the argument uses profit data of one meat restaurant and one vegetarian restaurant to make a general statement that people are not concerned about their red meat intake since the meat restaurant is more profitable than the vegetarian restaurant. This is again a weak and unsupported claim. To illustrate, higher profits do not mean higher sales. It is possible that the beef restaurant has a much larger profit margin in comparison to the vegetarian restaurant and hence is able to compensate for the decreased customers who eat at their restaurant. Therefore, it is not wise to relate profits with sales since an entity can be highly profitable due to reduced costs or a higher profit margin per product. The argument would have a better chance at serving its purpose if it showed trends of increasing customers in the beef restaurant and reducing customers in a vegetarian restaurant, the argument again takes examples of two stores to make a general claim and hence should have used a wider data set or mentioned that this data is representative of all stores to increase faith in the argument.
Finally, the argument should answer questions such as: are the examples mentioned representative of general trends, or are they just anomalies in a wider data set? what are the trends over a period of time rather than just data of one particular point in time to show an increase or decrease in the intake of meat and cheese? does having a variety of products in a store imply increased demand for the product? Are the higher profits in the beef restaurant and the lower profits in the vegetarian restaurant a function of customer visits and demand? Without convincing answers to these questions, one is left with the assumption that the argument is more of wishful thinking than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the aforementioned reasons and is implausible. If the argument mentioned the relevant missing information, it would be considerably strengthened. To evaluate the correctness of a conclusion, it is necessary to have full knowledge of all the contributing factors to a situation. Without this information, the argument remains open to debate and indefensible.
Sajjad1994 wrote:
AWA Score: 3 out of 6! 
I have used a GMATAWA auto-grader to evaluate your essay.
Coherence and connectivity: 1.5/5This rating corresponds to the flow of idea and expression from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analysed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.
Paragraph structure and formation: 4.5/5 The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs is 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: 3.5/5This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocaubulary 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!
Good Luckhemantpipariya wrote:
Hello All,
Can some one please inform about good points and improvement for my below AWA?
Thanks in advance for your valuable time.
Passage:
Laboratory studies show that Saluda Natural Spring Water contains several of the minerals necessary for good health and that it is completely free of bacteria. Residents of Saluda, the small town where the water is bottled, are hospitalized less frequently than the national average. Even though Saluda Natural Spring Water may seem expensive, drinking it instead of tap water is a wise investment in good health.”04:
My AWA
Here, One Fitness Magazine Author has concluded for Saluda Residence that they should Drink Bottled water instead of Tap water on basis of one Incident of residents who are less hospitalized than those who drink tap water. The author has come to this point by only one Laboratory result that Bottled water contains minerals and no Bacteria. Author came to this point without showing further evidence of water or any information of hospitalization people and that’s why this argument is lacking some more information to believe in this conclusion.
First, there is no mention about Laboratory that it was some Government or NABL approved or any local one. One cannot trust blindly for their health on any Laboratory Result.
Second and the biggest one about Hospitalization of Saluda residence as they are experiencing less illness. No other evidences are provided that what other things they are doing for their fitness. It may be possible that Saluda's Weather is more accurate, less pollution, no Industry are or People are more concern about their health by eating healthy food or daily exercises. Only on Water intake basis we cannot believe that this bottled water is only possible reason for Saluda's health. It may also possible that Saluda town has fewer numbers of residents than National and that why Average seems lower than national.
Third, Author has given one argument about cost of the bottle and suggesting people to spend some extra money for their health without proving any other disadvantages by drinking tap water. No information is given that tap water is less healthy. Also, there is no any Tap water lab report presented.
Thus, In conclusion, This argument is not convincing to drink Bottled water instead of Tap water. More information are required like Town condition, Tap water lab report, People's other daily intake etc... to believe this as per stated in above passages.
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10 Jun 2021, 20:45
