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Concentration: Finance, International Business
GMAT Date: 12-07-2011
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Please review my essay and let me know of your thoughts
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29 Nov 2011, 02:47
The following appeared in The Homebuilder magazine, a local publication with a focus on construction and sale of real-estate properties:
“According to the most recent survey of our readers, nearly 70% of the respondents indicated that they are planning to build or purchase a new home over the next 2 years. These results indicate that the growth in the construction industry is likely to accelerate in the near future. Therefore, this industry continues to offer lucrative opportunities for investment.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.
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The Homebuilder Magazine claims that the construction industry is likely to accelerate in the near future, as a result of which the industry will continue to offer lucrative opportunities for investment. Stated in this way the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which the argument could be evaluated. The conclusion relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Therefore, the argument is rather weak, unconvincing, and has several flaws.
First, the magazines’ argument relies only on the survey of its readers. Here it fails to mention what is the actual strength of its readers. If the number of readers is fewer than 100, the argument becomes weak as only a handful of construction business will not increase the whole construction industry. For example, a movie producer may predict that the new film is going to be a big hit on the basis of a survey that he had conducted among 5 industry people. Similarly, the argument assumes that a statement made by few people will hold true for every person.
Second, the argument fails to mention if there are already readymade houses available in abundance. If there are already lot of houses available in the area where the people what to build their houses, then there will be no impact to the industry. For example, a construction company had made 10000 houses out of which only 100 were occupied and the rest 9900 houses are vacant. Even if say 5000 of these houses out of these 9900 houses are booked by the readers of the magazine, still a lot of house will remain vacant and hence will not lead to any significant change to the construction industry.
Finally, the argument takes for granted the data from the survey that the people will buy the houses that they are planning to buy, over a period of next 2 years. For example, in case of a economic recession, people might post pone their plans of new home to a distant future. In this kind of a situation, the construction business may actually decline leading to job losses.
Therefore we can conclude that the magazine’s argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and therefore unconvincing. The magazine could considerably strengthen the argument if it mentions all the relevant facts clearly.