Officlal GMAT AWA tool. GMAT WRITE. Practicing AWA

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Thank you! What were the scoring categories?
What was the feedback, if any, besides the 4's?
Anything else worthwhile?
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Hi,

Sorry. No feedback is given. Only below categories.

Description
Score
Total Score 4
Analyzes the issue 4
Supports ideas 4
Organizes a coherent idea 4
Language control 4

I also did

The following appeared in an Excelsior Company memorandum.

"The Excelsior Company plans to introduce its own brand of coffee. Since coffee is an expensive food item, and since there are already many established brands of coffee, the best way to gain customers for the Excelsior brand is to do what Superior, the leading coffee company, did when it introduced the newest brand in its line of coffees: conduct a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions, and discount coupons for the new brand."

Discuss how well...

The author claims that the Excelsior Company should conduct a temporary sales promotion in order to introduce its new own brand of coffee in the highly competitive market of coffee. This way, Excelsior would be using the same stratetgy to gain customers that was used by Superior, which is now the leading coffee company. This strategy considers coffee as an expensive food item and it is based on using discounts to attract customers. By concluding this strategy will work based on the above premises, the author is at least making important assumptions that could well threaten the persuasive power of the argument.

In first place, there is no evidence to claim the strategy will work the same way for Excelsior Company as it has worked in the past for Superior. Concluding the outcome of this strategy will be positive for Excelsior is at least a generalization based on important assumptions. For example, nothing is said about the conditions in which the sales were offered neither about the time in which they were offered. Perhaps the promotions were offered in a time of economic recession and perhaps today, asumming a growing economic context, customers will now view this strategy as the actions of a desperate company begging for business. Therefore in this case the strategy will have the reverse effect.
In second place, even if the context did not change, there is no evidence to sustain this strategy can be applied to other company without assuming they both have the same finantial means to sustain such a promotion campaign. It is well known that offering discounts and promotions is sometimes effective but also expensive. The author provides no evidence to sustain that Excelsior would have the same finantial means to make carry out this type of strategy.

The author could strengthen the argument if he provided more information regarding the context and the finantial situation in which both Excelsior and Superior found themselves at the time of entering the market. It he is able to prove that both companies faced similar challenges in terms of the general state of the economy and competition and that they were both in a similar finantial situation in their beginning, he could therefore be more confident regarding the outcome of his conclusion.

score
Description
Score
Total Score 5
Analyzes the issue 5
Supports ideas 4
Organizes a coherent idea 5
Language control 5

Total Score 5
Analyzes the issue 5
Supports ideas 5
Organizes a coherent idea 5
Language control 6

"The Excelsior Company plans to introduce its own brand of coffee. Since coffee is an expensive food item, and since there are already many established brands of coffee, the best way to gain customers for the Excelsior brand is to do what Superior, the leading coffee company, did when it introduced the newest brand in its line of coffees: conduct a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions, and discount coupons for the new brand."

The author proposes that Excelsior use a temporary sales promotion including free samples, price reductions and discount coupons to introduce Excelsior's coffee brand. Many factors need to be considered to develop a new product strategy and the author has failed to consider a number of these factors. To further consider this strategy, the author should consider additional information, including the current market environment further and the factors that Superior's similar promotion successful.
The author suggests that since coffee is expensive, reduced cost may entice consumers to try Excelsior brand. In order to assess the effectiveness of this strategy, additional information regarding the extent of the discount is needed. Knowing the discounted price in relation to other products available would assist in determining the effectiveness of the discount. If the discount merely reduces the price of Excelsior brand to the cost of an established brand with high consumer satisfaction, the discount is less likely to be successful.
The potential success of the discount campaign is also based on the assumption that the Excelsior campaign will achieve similar results as the Superior campaign. This argument neglects to consider the fact that Superior was launching a new brand in an already successful line of coffee, rather than a new line itself. While Superior may only need discounts to entice the consumers of their other lines of coffees to try the new brand, Excelsior will not have this advantage. Therefore one cannot tell whether additional promotions besides reduced prices and free samples are needed to successfully penetrate the marketplace. The author should provide additional information regarding the penetration into the market of other companies recently in Excelsior's position.
In conclusion, the author's argument supporting the new campaign strategy is flawed. While there are many different ways to launch a brand of coffee, the author should consider additional information before deciding on a course of action given the flawed logic in his or her argument. Considering these additional factors will increase the quality of their plan and increase their potential for success.
 

Total Score 4
Analyzes the issue 4
Supports ideas 4
Organizes a coherent idea 4
Language control 4

"Clearly, government has a responsibility to support the arts. However, if that support is going to produce anything of value, government must place no restrictions on the art that is produced."

The role of government within a society has been greatly debated, in particular the role that government plays in supporting the arts has been a particularly controversial matter. Despite claims to the contrary, unrestricted government support of the arts is unnecessary for the production of valuable art. History is full of examples of valuable artistic contributions made with restricted support or even without the support of the reigning government, and this will likely continue in the future.
While government support of the arts is often helpful in the development of valuable art, it is certainly not necessary. Today in the United States, decency laws currently regulate and censor the type of language that can appear on television. Despite this restriction on the art produced, valuable television shows continue to be produced. Many of these shows can be considered valuable both artistically and financially, despite their development in a government restricted environment.
Another example is the town of Footloose, Iowa, which banned dancing during a brief period in the 1980s. Despite this restriction by the government, Kevin Bacon, the world renowned dancer, grew up in the town during this time. He has since admitted that many of his famous dance maneuvers were developed in his home and abandoned factory during that time. Clearly the government restrictions on art did prevent him from developing his revolutionary moves.
Government assistance certainly has the potential to facilitate the production of valuable art, by creating an environment where expression is unrestricted. Yet despite this fact, many of the valuable art today that is considered classic was developed despite government sanctions.


While reviewing, I noticed just how short my essay was. Curious about the impact the word count had on the score, I resubmitted the essay below. Note that a huge chunk is completely unrelated to the point and is taken from my first essay. I'll have to be sure to keep the my word counts up, as it seems to be an important part of the computer scoring.


Total Score 5
Analyzes the issue 5
Supports ideas 5
Organizes a coherent idea 5
Language control 5
"Clearly, government has a responsibility to support the arts. However, if that support is going to produce anything of value, government must place no restrictions on the art that is produced."
The role of government within a society has been greatly debated, in particular the role that government plays in supporting the arts has been a particularly controversial matter. Despite claims to the contrary, unrestricted government support of the arts is unnecessary for the production of valuable art. History is full of examples of valuable artistic contributions made with restricted support or even without the support of the reigning government, and this will likely continue in the future.
While government support of the arts is often helpful in the development of valuable art, it is certainly not necessary. Today in the United States, decency laws currently regulate and censor the type of language that can appear on television. Despite this restriction on the art produced, valuable television shows continue to be produced. Many of these shows can be considered valuable both artistically and financially, despite their development in a government restricted environment.
The author suggests that since coffee is expensive, reduced cost may entice consumers to try Excelsior brand. In order to assess the effectiveness of this strategy, additional information regarding the extent of the discount is needed. Knowing the discounted price in relation to other products available would assist in determining the effectiveness of the discount. If the discount merely reduces the price of Excelsior brand to the cost of an established brand with high consumer satisfaction, the discount is less likely to be successful. The potential success of the discount campaign is also based on the assumption that the Excelsior campaign will achieve similar results as the Superior campaign. This argument neglects to consider the fact that Superior was launching a new brand in an already successful line of coffee, rather than a new line itself. While Superior may only need discounts to entice the consumers of their other lines of coffees to try the new brand, Excelsior will not have this advantage. Therefore one cannot tell whether additional promotions besides reduced prices and free samples are needed to successfully penetrate the marketplace. The author should provide additional information regarding the penetration into the market of other companies recently in Excelsior's position.
Another example is the town of Footloose, Iowa, which banned dancing during a brief period in the 1980s. Despite this restriction by the government, Kevin Bacon, the world renowned dancer, grew up in the town during this time. He has since admitted that many of his famous dance maneuvers were developed in his home and abandoned factory during that time. Clearly the government restrictions on art did prevent him from developing his revolutionary moves.
Government assistance certainly has the potential to facilitate the production of valuable art, by creating an environment where expression is unrestricted. Yet despite this fact, many of the valuable art today that is considered classic was developed despite government sanctions.

Hi,
e-readers do not rate off topic responses.
see reference....
"Because GMAC will use the IntelliMetric system as a check against a human rater and not as a primary scoring system, the issue of off-topic responses is not viewed as a serious problem. Off-topic responses will be flagged by the human reader."
google for RR0508_IntelliMetricAWA.pdf

The score of 5 can also be because that unrelated section was good to be scored 5 (your previous post shows that that essay was indeed scored 5) and when combined with the original section the cumulative was above 5. It need not necessarily because of the length. Any thoughts?

"The Excelsior Company plans to introduce its own brand of coffee. Since coffee is an expensive food item, and since there are already many established brands of coffee, the best way to gain customers for the Excelsior brand is to do what Superior, the leading coffee company, did when it introduced the newest brand in its line of coffees: conduct a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions, and discount coupons for the new brand."

Score:4
Analysis of the issue:4
Supports ideas:4
Organizes coherent idea:4
Language control:4


The arguement that the Excelsior brand should follow the superior company and conduct sales promotion methods is seriously flawed. The arguement omits several important facts that need to be mentioned to substantiate the arguement. Firstly the arguement simply mentions that Superior company is the leading coffee company which used temprorary sales promotion methods for one of their new coffee brands but it doesnot mention if that specific brand is the leading brand for superior company. If it was true that the newest brand they promoted by sales promotion methods is their least saling brand would seriously weeken the arguement.The arguement would be more sound and persuasive if it had mentioned that the Superior company got success gaining costumers for that specific brand for which they used sales promotion method. Secondly the arguement doesnot really mention what are the leading brands of superior company and how were they promoted. Thirdly the arguement compares one company's first brand to other company's whole line of brands which seriously flaws the arguement. The argument would be more logical if the comparison was equal. The arguements also doesnot mention any other method Superior company used to promote its sales. So if the company used any other method along with temprorary sales promotion method and the other method was actually more affective than this one would seriously hurt the arguement. . The arguement would be more thorough and convincing if it included the points mentioned above.

Is this offer still valid ?

Sorry it is gone
But please do post your feedback/experience if you can.
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Sure, I am planning to take it before my GMAT. I will definitely post my essays and the feedback. Thanks

Posted from GMAT ToolKit

abhicoolmax - will wait for your feedback...based on few posts up...it doesnt look of much help (specially as it cant detect off-topic responses...)

My guess....it picks key words defining reasoning etc....not even sure if it can check grammar style etc

surprised that GMAC has shared this....as little experimentation can crack the code....but

The following appeared in an Excelsior Company memorandum.

"The Excelsior Company plans to introduce its own brand of coffee. Since coffee is an expensive food item, and since there are already many established brands of coffee, the best way to gain customers for the Excelsior brand is to do what Superior, the leading coffee company, did when it introduced the newest brand in its line of coffees: conduct a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions, and discount coupons for the new brand."

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.

My essay:

The Excelsior company wants to introduce its own brand of coffee since coffee is an expensive food item and might have good profit margins. However, as there are several established brands of coffee already, it needs to work out a way to gain a foothold in the market. For this purpose, the company plans to pursue the same marketing strategy that the leading coffee company Superior had used. However, I think there are several flaws in that line of reasoning. And hence this argument seems a little weak.

First, Superior is already an established brand, and the market leader. No data is given as to how long back it entered the coffee market. Without this information it is difficult to ascertain the utility of the marketing strategy for Excelsior. A brand might take decades to establish, and what worked a decade back, need not work today. For example, when Google was initially set up, it depended on word of mouth, rather than any communication media, for its marketing. As it was initially just an internal product for the University, this approach worked for them. However, it might not work for any company now. We see these days that most new web companies do advertise heavily when they initially launch a product for the masses.

Second, no information has been provided about the target market for the coffee or the pricing strategy. It might be that the coffee produced by Superior is one of the cheaper products in the market. And that they earn their profits from volume sales rather than having a niche market. Whereas, Excelsior might be aiming at the niche market of expensive and luxury coffee. If that were the case, then the same marketing strategies might not be relevant for Excelsior. Can Hyundai apply the same approach towards the market as does a luxury brand like Ferrari?

Without some of the relevant and contextual details, it is difficult to judge the efficacy of using the same marketing strategy that a competitor applied some unknown years back. If we were to get some more details in this regard, we could have judged the situation better.

Although, all the factors being the same, it might not be a bad idea to follow the same approach as that of a leading brand in the market. Sometimes there is nothing wrong with sticking to the tried and the tested. In the absence of any other better idea, Excelsior might not have much to lose if it pursues the same methods as did Superior. Its better to have some plan rather than no plan.

Conducting a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions and discount coupons might not be such a bad idea. It could be a good ploy to get users to try out the product. And discounts and other monetary incentives are usually very effective in this regard. If the quality of the product is good enough and the pricing is appropriate, introducing enough customers to the product through such offers might give a significant push to consumer interest in the product. While, customer satisfaction might leverage word of mouth marketing.

Therefore, depending on the context the approach might or might not be a beneficial one.

Analyzes the issue 6
Supports ideas 5
Organizes a coherent idea 6
Language control 6

Total score 6

Really good one..

The following appeared in an Excelsior Company memorandum.

"The Excelsior Company plans to introduce its own brand of coffee. Since coffee is an expensive food item, and since there are already many established brands of coffee, the best way to gain customers for the Excelsior brand is to do what Superior, the leading coffee company, did when it introduced the newest brand in its line of coffees: conduct a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions, and discount coupons for the new brand."

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.

Total Score- 4
Analyzes the issue 4
Supports ideas 4
Organizes a coherent idea 4
Language control 5

The argument that Excelsior Company should conduct a temporary sales promotion for the new brand to gain customers similar to what Superior did in the past is not entirely logically convincing, because it ignores certain crucial assumptions.

First, the argument assumes that the past determines the future. Just because another company in the same industry chose a marketing tool that worked doesn't mean it will be successful for Excelsior Company. There may have been other determining factors that influenced the result such as the market, taste, weather, etc.

Second, the argument never addresses if Excelsior Company sells a specialty coffee. It may be imported from abroad and is more expensive. Although there are already many brands of coffees, this brand would have its own niche. There would be no need for price reductions or discount coupons. Free samples may be needed at the beginning for customers to try the coffee and after a short period of time customers would be flocking to the brand of coffee on their own for the taste of goodness.

Finally the argument omits if the Excelsior Company has other offerings. It does not state whether Excelsior Company has food along with coffee. If so, the company could offer food and coffee specials since the memorandum states that coffee is an expensive food item. This is another way that the company would gain customers to the brand.

Ultimately, the argument might have been strengthened by not assuming that the past determines the future, addressing whether Excelsior sold a specialty coffee to differentiate itself from other brands, and whether it has other offerings such as food.

How helpful is this tool? are there any discounts available?

Description
Score
Total Score 5
Analyzes the issue 5
Supports ideas 5
Organizes a coherent idea 5
Language control 5


My response:

The argument claims that the best way to gain customers for a new coffee brand, the Excelsior brand, is to do what Superior, the leading coffee company, did when it introduced the newest brand in its line of coffee: conduct a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions, and discount coupons for the new brand because coffee is expensive and there are already many coffee established brands. Stated in this way the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The conclusion relies on assumption, for which there is no clear evidence. Therefore, the argument is rather weak, unconvincing and has several flaws.
First, the argument readily assumes that because coffee is an expensive food item and there are already many established brands of coffee, The Excelsior needs to do what Superior did when it introduced the newest brand in its line of coffee. This statement is a stretch and not substantiated in any way. It is also a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between price, number of established brand of coffee and promotion way. The author fails to clarify why The Excelsior Company needs to choose the strategy of Superior with the reason that coffee is expensive and there are already many established brand of coffee. The argument would have been much clearer if it explicitly gave reasons of why in a expensive item areas, in which there are also many established brand exited, Excelsior needs to do the same action of The Superior.
Second, the argument claims that what The Superior Company did is the best way to The Excelsior Company.There are numerous ways to gain customers in an area, for example, online promotion, price reduction... Each company has its own strategy. Besides, although conducting a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions, and discount coupons for the new brand is what Superior did and Superior is the leading coffee company, we have not substantiated that it is the best way. Superior can proceeded many other ways to gain customers that it not mentioned here. In addition, many companies use some other ways to gain customers. For instance, Trung Nguyen cafe, a popular coffee brand in Asia, use internet as a useful tool in its promotion campaign. After its promotion campaign, Trung Nguyen coffee brand became popular in Asia, especially in Viet Nam. It is clearly another successful examples of promotion. Thus, we cannot claim that Superior is the best way.
Finally, the argument concludes that The Excelsior needs to do the same promotion way of Superior base on an assumption that a company do the same strategy with other company could gain the same success. This is a very weak and unsubstantiated assumption. There are several examples that two company proceed the same and get different result. We can say GreenSad and Malware. In 1990s, they are new delivery companies and have plan to focus on online food delivery. They proceeded same promotion campaign at the same time. The result was that GreenSad was market leader and Malware was bankrupt. What happened? We do not mention why this happened today. We just give an example that two company hold the same strategy but get different result. In addition, with the data given, we cannot conclude anything about Excelsior and Superior's situation, whether their situations are the same? Hence, we cannot base on the assumption that if Excelsior do what Superior did, they can gain customer.
In summary, the argument is flawed and therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts, reasons and correlation between them. In order to assess the merits of certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors.

the page is not found

can u please help me out on this ???

Hi, I am just reviving my GMAT preparation. Planning to take the actual test in about 3 months or so. When is the best time for me to start on the AWA preparation? I am looking at the PhD and not MBA admissions.

Thanks