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Joined: 29 Jan 2017
Posts: 31
Location: Germany
Concentration: Strategy, Leadership
GPA: 3.3
WE:Consulting (Consulting)
One AWA a day! Day 4/11
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10 May 2017, 02:58
My GMAT exam is on Thursday the 18th and to exercise the AWA I try to write one essay per day!
I can't post my essay from yesterday because I did a GMAT Prep Practice exam and was not aware that it is not possible to access the essay afterwards.
If you have the time to read the essay, please take one more minute and give me some short feedback. It is difficult to improve without the opinion of someone else! Thanks.
The following appeared in the editorial section of a local newspaper:
“This past winter, 200 students from Waymarsh State College traveled to the state capitol building to protest against
proposed cuts in funding for various state college programs. The other 12,000 Waymarsh students evidently weren’t
so concerned about their education: they either stayed on campus or left for winter break. Since the group who did
not protest is far more numerous, it is more representative of the state’s college students than are the protesters.
Therefore the state legislature need not heed the appeals of the protesting students.”
Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.
The argument states that 200 out of the 12,000 students from Waymarsh State College protested against the proposed spending cuts for certain state college offerings. Since 11,800 of the students did not join the protest, they are supposedly not concerned about the cuts. The argument concludes that as the larger group of students is more representative, the state legislature does not need to listen to the protests. At first glance, the authors argument may have some merit, but closer examination reveals ill-founded assumptions, lack of evidence and poor reasoning. Therefore, the argument is weak, dubious and unconvincing.
First, the argument states that since there are more students who did who did not join the protest, this group is representative of all students. On the one hand, it is reasonable to believe that the large proportion of students who stayed away from the state capitol is representive of the whole. On the other hand, a group should not be dismissed merely for its size. For example, a minority of the students may be affected by the cuts, but those cuts hit them heavily in their daily work. Clearly, the size of the group does not make its opinion more important.
Second, it is higly doubtful that the students that did not protest were not concerned about the issue. While this is a tempting assumption, its truth is by no means obvious. To illustrate, there are many other possible reasons why these students did not come to the state capitol: Possibly they were engaged in other activites to show their opposition to the cuts such as writing or calling their representatives, protest in other places or holding rallies on the campus. Moreover, it is possible that while they loved to join, they had other commitments that they could not put off, such as family celebrations over the holidays and exams to study for. Consequently, the author fails to make a convincing case for the lack of interest of the students who did not take part in the protest. To give the argument more credibility, the author should provide supporting evidence for his assumption.
Third, the argument never addresses the actions which were taken by the classes of other colleges in the state and therefore it assumes that only Waymarsh State College is important for the opinion of the representatives. What did students of other colleges do in response to the proposed cuts? Where did they protest and voice their opposition? Is Waymarsh State College even strongly affected by the cuts compared to other schools? Without answers to these questions, one is left with the impression that the author hides information from the readers. To better evaluate the argument, we would need more information about the actions taken by students from other colleges.
In conclusion, the argument is not completely well-reasoned as it stands. It could considerably be strengthemed if the author clearly mentioned all releveant facts. To allow for a better evaluation of the argument the author needs to explain in more detail why he believes that the students who did not protest were not concerned about the issue and that their opinion is representative of all students.