Hi GMATers, please rate my AWA. I am starting my preparation for AWA. I will appreciate your honest review. My target is to get at least a 5. The following topic is from
the official guide. Thanks for the help.
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The following appeared in the editorial section of a corporate newsletter:
“The common notion that workers are generally apathetic about management issues is false, or at least outdated: a recently published survey indicates that 79 percent of the nearly 1,200 workers who responded to survey questionnaires expressed a high level of interest in the topics of corporate restructuring and redesign of benefits programs.”------------------------
The argument claims that the common notion that workers are generally apathetic about management issues is either false or outdated. The argument presents the results of a survey to support the claim. However, the evidence presented is superficial and incomplete. The argument is trying to reject a well-established common notion without providing strong supporting data. As a result, it fails to serve its purpose.
Firstly, the argument cites the results of a survey without providing any details about the methodology and population used by the survey. In order to understand the results, we need to have more details about the survey. For example, it is critical to describe characteristics of the 1200 workers such as their age group, seniority level in their company, geographic location, size of the company, and type of the industry. While the “79%” is an overall average result, it may vary significantly among smaller clusters within the 1200 workers depending upon these factors. We also need to have a good understanding of the survey method to validate the results. How were the questions designed? How was the survey conducted? Was it in-person, over a phone, or via social media? What is the sampling error? Without such details, it is difficult to view results as evidence.
Secondly, the definition and scope of the term ‘management issues’ are not clear from the argument. It is very likely that workers’ interests vary depending upon the type of management issues. For example, workers may be interested in short-term objectives, HR policies, profit sharing guidelines, etc. Such management issues are likely to have a direct impact on their work. However, other issues such as long-term vision, and succession plan may not be of great interest to them. It is immature to gloss over these differences and apply the results of the survey to all management issues.
Lastly, the argument does not specify the organization that conducted the survey. Does the organization have good expertise to tackle such management surveys? Is the organization or the author of the corporate newsletter biased towards the conclusion? As it is well-known, we can interpret the same data differently and draw conflicting conclusions. The argument needs to provide the raw data such as individual responses to individual questions.
In a nutshell, the argument suffers from many loopholes as demonstrated above. It does not provide sufficient and necessary data to support its claim. The author needs to conduct an in-depth study to arrive at an indisputable conclusion.