Hi All!

I chose to try the following prompt from page 811 from the 2018 Official Guide:
"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.'"

Here is my response (this is my first crack at an AWA essay, so any and all suggestions are super helpful!):

The prompt discusses an opinion on whether the state legislature should consider heeding the appeals of protesting students regarding proposed cuts for funding college programs. The argument has several flaws, including vague language, leaps in logic, and lofty assumptions.

With regards to the broad conclusion that the 12,000 students that did not attend the protest are “not so concerned about their education,” the author makes quite an assumption that simply not attending the rally equates to this conclusion. It would first be helpful to know which programs were being cut, to what degree or in what capacity, which students would be affected among the entire student population, and how significantly it affects them. It is tenuous to state that not attending a program implies that these students are not concerned with their education; additionally, this is a vague statement that should be refined by indicating or defining what “concern for their education” means. The author’s arguments would shatter if it was determined that, for example, 80% of students indicate that they are not only very concerned about their education, but indicate that these programs affect them in a negative way.

Furthermore, the author implies, most questionably, that these 12,000 students are “more representative” of the student population and bases their conclusion on this notion. It is quite possible that there are myriad reasons why only 200 students were able to attend the protest. Most notably, the author indicates that these students had to travel to the state capitol. Perhaps the state capitol is not only far, but not easy to get to, such that only 200 students had the means or capability to travel. Many students use winter break as an opportunity to see family or to work in a job to make extra money; many of those commitments could have prevented most students from attending the protest, especially if the funding cuts were proposed very recently. In fact, if the funding cuts were proposed in the last 24 hours, and 200 students were able to travel to the capitol to protest, this would significantly undermine the author’s argument, as it would be most impressive that these students were able to mobilize on such short notice. If it was found that most students would have liked to attend the protest, but couldn’t, the author’s argument falls apart.

Because of the many flaws and leaps of faith in the author’s conclusions,
as well as the many assumptions that are made, the argument lacks conviction. The argument could be corroborated if more details about the programs being cut were conveyed, the impact these cuts would have on the student body, and discovering how each and every student feels about the proposed cuts.

Please rate my AWA and provide constructive feedback. If you can, please feel free to provide a score as well. Thanks in advance for the help.

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.”

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The argument claims that the protestors are not representative of Waymarsh State College and hence, the state legislatures need not heed the appeals of the protesting student. The argument arrives at this conclusion solely based on a comparison between the number of the protestors and the number of the rest of the students. The logical analysis included in the argument is superficial and incomplete. Due to the lack of any other strong evidence, the argument fails to serve its purpose.

Firstly, the argument falsely concludes that the 12,000 students who did not travel to the state capitol are not concerned about their education. These students may have their own preferred way of protest. For example, some students may prefer to protest via news articles, social media, or by attending a local townhall meeting rather than going to the state capitol. It is also likely that the rest of the students did not know about the protest beforehand. They may attend the protest if they had prior knowledge of it. Hence, the claim made by the author that only the 200 students are concerned about the issue is an unwarranted extrapolation.

Secondly, it is a well-known fact that some protests start small but as the awareness spread, more people join and the protest takes a more significant form. It will be a mistake to ignore such a possibility for this issue. Most of the citizens of the state may not be readily aware of the reduction in funding for various state college programs. However, the coverage of the protest by local media and news articles may spread the awarness among the society causing increased support for the protesting students.

Lastly, the underlying approach presented by the argument is that the legislatures should only listen to the constituents if they protest strongly.
This approach of governance is fundamentally wrong. The aim of the legislatures should be to gather all the information before drafting the law to make sure that all the stakeholders are heard properly. While the legislatures may be right in deciding to reduce the budget deficit, there may be other avenues that may not cause such a grievance.

In a nutshell, the argument suffers from numerous loopholes as demonstrated above. The argument does not provide sufficient and necessary evidence. It is misleading the state legislature by recommending to ignore the students. The state legislature should rely on more in-depth analyses and public surveys to understand the importance of the issue to decide future action items.

Welcome to GMAT Club!


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Thanks for the quick feedback. Seems like I need to improve my 'Paragraph structure and formation'. Any suggestion on how to improve it? I usually keep one paragraph for the introduction, one for each critique (usually 3 critiques), and one for the conclusion. I also use words such as firstly, secondly, lastly, etc. to initiate each paragraph.

Well... I would not say Firstly, secondly, etc. Kind of awkward and even the machine does not like it
People say "First" or "First of all..." just use the Chineseburnt structure. It takes 1 day to practice
https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6 ... 64327.html
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