An ancient, traditional treatment to help reduce obesity - coconut oil - has recently been proven effective. In a study completed last year, 50 volunteers who had issues maintaining a healthy weight were fed a special diet rich in coconut oil for 2 weeks. No volunteer was allowed to eat outside food during the trial, and each volunteer had his or her weight measured several times each day. After 2 weeks, the volunteers had lost an average of 8 pounds each. Therefore, the study proves that coconut oil reduce obesity within a short period of time.


Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) could plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.


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In today's world, everyone wants to have a fit physique, whether it is an overweight person or a person who is already fit but tends to become much more fitter.
This argument is about the traditional treatment of coconut oil to help reduce obesity. The basis of this argument is a study of 50 volunteers who were suffering from weight issues. The study shows that obesity can be reduced by using coconut oil within a short period of time.However, the author has not given enough evidences to support his conclusion. Also, he hasn't considered many possibilities.


In the beginning, the author has mentioned that the study was conducted on 50 volunteers who had weight issues and they were fed a special diet rich in coconut oil for two weeks. However, the author has not mentioned what constituted the special diet. He didn't mention what ingredients were present in the special diet.
Were there some ingredients that led to weight loss along with the use of coconut oil. Also, the author didn't mention that whether volunteers had undergone some physical activities (Viz. gymming, yoga, biking, etc.) during this study. If they had then we can assume that their weight loss didnt happen just because of coconut oil rich diet. The author has further stated that all volunteers were not allowed to eat outside food. As we all know, eating outside food viz coke, pizzas, cakes, etc. tends to gain weight qucikly.So if the volunteers were not allowed to eat outside food then coconut oil could not be the only reason for their weight loss.


Moreover, the author has failed to give the information on volunteers who participated in this study. the author didn't mention of what age group of volunteers were considered for the study. Was the study done on senior citizens or on teenagers or middle aged people? We all know people who are aged are difficult to lose weight rather than teenagers and middle aged people. If the author has given a detailed description of volunteers then it would have justified his study. Also, the author did this study only once. There are several factors that generally lead to the result of the study. The author should have conducted this study several times to come to a conclusion.



The most important factor is that this study was done only on a small group of 50 volunteers while there are millions of people who are suffering from the problem of obesity. It is not feasible to think that the same results will work for all suffering from obesity. Hence, the study should have been based on a larger group of volunteers.
Lastly, the author has stated that that volunteers had lost an average of 8 pounds each. I, somehow, don't agree with the author's method of calculation.
Calculating the average weight loss doesn't justify the study that all volunteers lost weight in two weeks. There could be a chance where some of the volunteers lost their respective weight and some of the volunteers gained weight rather losing it. In the study, the author should have mentioned the weight lost of all volunteers rather than mentioning the average weight loss.



Hence, we can say that although the author's argument might be true but he should have collected more evidences in his favor which could have justified his study more.

You could ask an expert to review it. I am not an expert hence will not be able to grade your AWA. Since no one responded I thought of informing you. Just my personal opinion after going through the following link is your AWA seems to be containing the essential ingredients, i.e. no. of paras, structural words etc to take you over the line.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6 ... ml#p470475
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