The common notion that workers are generally apathetic about managemen

Question

Hi i am new to GMATclub. I am not good at writing. can you please rate my essay and guide me how can i improve my AWA skills to get a 6.

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“The common notion that workers are generally apathetic about management issues is false, or at least outdated: a recently published survey indicates that 79 percent of the nearly 1,200 workers who responded to survey questionnaires expressed a high level of interest in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.”

Discuss how well reasoned … etc.

Friction with Management with its staff has been prevalent over many years. There are those who debate over insufficient salary, those who assert that management is not providing them proper increments, and those who believe that management is only good at making their employees work too hard. In the preceding statement, the author claims that nowadays workers take keen interest in activities in improving the corporate policies and programmes. Though his claim may well have merit, the author presents a poorly reasoned argument, based on several premises and assumptions, and based solely on the evidence the author offers; we cannot accept his argument as valid.

The primary issue with the author’s reasoning lies in his unsubstantiated premises. He presents a survey to prove his point. As per the survey, 79 percent out of 1200 workers have desired in the topics of corporate restructuring and redesign of benefit programs. Now, a major flaw in this survey is the number of workers serving in the organization. The survey result would have been acceptable if the number of workers working in the organization was 2000. But for a large organization where the number of employees goes above 200000, the result is completely meaningless. The author’s premises, the basis for his argument, lack any legitimate evidentiary support and render his conclusion unacceptable.

In addition, the author makes several assumptions that remain unproven. He is basing his statement on only one survey. There are no silver bullets or single actions that will easily end the common behavior amongst workers. The workers feel that its management is not providing sufficient salary which they are entitled for the duties they serve. Moreover, the workers could have taken interest in those benefit programs of the company which are not related to them. The author weakens his argument by making assumptions and failing to provide explication of the links between worker and the management he assumes exist.
While the author has made a key issue against the common notion that is not to say that the entire argument is without base. He could have detailed the survey results such as training programs; Family benefits programs from the company which the employees are satisfied. He could have surveyed more companies across the world. The reason for the interest of the workers in the management issues could have been addressed. Though there are several issues with the author’s reasoning at present, with research and clarification, he could improve significantly.

In sum, the author’s illogical argument is based on unsupported premises and unsubstantiated assumptions that render his conclusion invalid. Even though the work culture has changed over the years, but then also there are some issues which has to be addressed between the employees and its management on a continuous basis. If the author truly hopes to change his readers’ mind on the issue, he would have to largely restructure his argument, fix the flaws in his logic, clearly explicate his assumptions, and provide evidentiary support. Without these things, his poorly reasoned arguments will likely convince few people.

pike · Answer

I will be honest with you. This is a very weak essay.

There are two components to a good argument essay, grammar and content.

Grammar 
Your grammar is weak and needs improvement. Your essay is full of incorrect word usage, strange idioms, sentence structure etc. I know its tough for non native speakers, but I suggest you spend more time reading quality english sources (newspapers, books, websites etc). I am not an expert on AWA scoring, but even if your content is rock solid, you will not score a 6.0 with badly written english.

But I feel the real issue with your essay is the content, not the grammar.

Content 
You fail to really attack the argument itself. You make a ton of few very general "this argument is weak and not supported by its premises" statements, but never really tie those back into the argument. Basically there is a lot of generic, empty statements that don't add anything to your analysis. I've annotated my specific thoughts in the attached word file. I feel like you have followed a template far too closely, and left in a lot of waffly wording that sounds good, but is meaningless.

I feel you only raise one genuine issue with the author's argument - "he is basing his statement on one survey". You state this, then do not delve into it at all! You go off on a complete tangent right after making a good point.

Your second paragraph regarding the number of workers is pretty weak. Essentially you are suggesting the survey methodology was wrong, when there is no real evidence that it was. You need to focus on the argument presented, and only bring in outside information to highlight flaws in the authors argument. You might raise an issue with the methodology as a secondary issue. I'm not saying its completely absurd to raise, but its definitely not the biggest flaw. You are better off giving some benefit of the doubt that the survey was fair and the methodology was correct.

I do not think you have fully appreciated the argument. What is the  real  issue with this argument? Its that the conclusion talks about  management issues , but the survey talks about interest in restructuring and design of benefits.

You need to interpret "restructuring and design of benefits" as "job layoffs and job pay".

So the argument is saying that workers care about management issues, because they care about job layoffs and job pay! This is a very weak argument. Workers will always care about job layoffs and job pay because these issues directly affect them. Just because they care about these issues does not mean they care about the much broader 'management issues'.

This is the major flaw in the argument, and needs to be your first point. Your second paragraph might be some of those issues with relying on one survey, and that no information is provided on the survey methodology. I would then move into how the argument could be improved, and finish off by restating my view on the argument.

Arunim · Answer

Hi, thanks a lot for taking time and reviewing my essay in such a detailed manner. can you please rate my essay. I wont mind even if it is 0. But atleast i will know where do i stand. I agree with you that most of them are generic statements since i picked up most of the lines from Economist.

Seriously, this was the best and detailed review i have ever seen in BTG or GC.

I really appreciate your efforts.

Warm regards

Arunima

pike · Answer

No problem! I don't normally look in the AWA forum!

I honestly don't know what rating you receive. The ratings are percentiles, so I would say this might be be a 4.0-4.5 (21st-37th %ile) I am guessing.

You should follow a template (how-to-get-6-0-awa-my-guide-64327.html), but it should be just a structural one. Make sure you understand the ideas you present, and explore them fully. Each paragraph should have a clear point - don't through in words and expressions if they don't add to your paragraph's point. Make sure you spend time to really understand the argument (like you should for a CR problem).

Good luck!

Arunim · Answer

Pike Can you please review my 2nd essay too which i had posted today..Please Please :-D

I am not allowed to post the urls yet.After your suggestion, i have started reading the economist magazine and 2 detailed topics each day from idebate forum. Thanks & Regards Arunima

ahmedfaraz · Answer

Hi, 
 I am new to the club. I will really appreciate if you could review my essay and point out the mistakes.

The presented argument is flawed because of the assumptions it made without providing proper reasoning. First, 1200 workers that are surveyed cannot represent all the workers. Also, even the workers who responded showed their interest only in topics of corporate restructuring and redesign of benefits, and not for all the management issues.
Argument wrongly assumes that 1200 workers that are surveyed represent the whole population of the workers. It is quite possible that the surveyed group of workers is all from same class of workers and has certain interests in management while the remaining classes of workers are still apathetic about management issues. Argument could be stronger if some information regarding the type of workers surveyed would have been provided. The conclusion drawn would be convincing if it could be proved that surveyed workers belongs to all the classes of workers.
Secondly, Even the workers that responded in the survey showed their interest only in topics of corporate restructuring and redesign of benefits. This does not mean that workers are interested in all the management issues. There are chances that workers are only interested in the above-mentioned issues, because those issues benefit them directly, and are apathetic about rest of the management issues. 
Argument could be made stronger if details of surveyed workers would have been provided. Also, Management issues is a vast set and having interest in just two topics does not necessarily means that one has an interest in all the management issues

nehamndra95 · Answer

Hi. I would appreciate if you could rate my essay, and give your opinion.

The argument states that workers in a corporate are generally interested about management issues. This is supported by the evidence of a survey conducted indicating that 79% of the nearly 1200 workers showed high level of interest in topics of corporate restructuring redesign of benefit programs. The argument is logically flawed, because it fails to address the reasoning behind their interests in its evidence.

Most conspicuosly, the evidence in the argument does not specify the kind of survey conducted, and the questions asked in it. While, the evidence might be in favour of the conclusion, it fails to address if the survey took into account only topics which definitely do affect workers directly as the corporate restructuring occurs. For example, if restructuring redesign of benefit programs directly affects the number of leaves, or the payroll of a worker, they would definitely show interest towards the management issues. The evidence also states that the number of workers who took the survey was 1200, which might be a small fraction of the total number of workers in the corporate. Hence, while 79% of the 1200 who gave the survey might be a good majority, there is not indication of the fraction of the total number of workers who expressed a high level of interest. The evidence leading to the conclusion mentioned in the argument does not specify the degree to which the survey exhibits honest opinions of the workers, and thus it might be a case that the evidence is showing flawed results.

Hence, while it might be true that the workers are no more apathetic about management issues, the evidence given in favour lacks enough reasoning for the same. It fails to address many issues which might lead to the the reason behind the results of the survey. Thus, to make the argument more concrete, it would be necessary to present a more detailed evidence on the same.

Bob2018 · Answer

Please evaluate.

“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.”

As per the argument, there is a common thinking that the workers are neutral to the management issues and have no interest in the same. But at the same time, a recent survey highlights something different; approximately, 960 workers out of a total of 1200 workers showed their interests in the management related issues such as corporate restructuring and redesign of benefits program.

Assumptions:

1. All these 1200 people who were a part of this recently conducted survey were not at all apathetic to the management issues. Apart from this, they were ready to provide any help required from their side ( for the resolution of any issues).

2. The management issues discussed with these 1200 people (who were a part of this survey) were almost the same as the issues which were discussed anytime earlier. Hence, the argument above concludes that the common thinking of workers' neutrality is false.

3. People surveyed were not under any kind of pressure to show their interests in the issues discussed.

Weaknesses:

1. There can be a variety of management related issues, and the ones which were discussed with those 1200 people were general issues which were really interesting as compared to the management issues which had previously been discussed.

2. Most of the people surveyed were MBA graduates who were generally interested in discussing any issues related to management.

3. We cannot form an opinion based on any 1 survey. Technically, we need to conduct such surveys every week and that too with different people (people of all age groups), in order to make an accurate conclusion.

In my opinion, the argument is weak as no information about the previously conducted surveys has been given. Also, due to the weaknesses as mentioned above.

bkm181989 · Answer

Hi, please Evaluate the essay and help me achieve my score of 5/6 in AWA Section. 
 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.”

Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc .

The argument presented by the Author of the editorial section claims that the Common notion that the workers are more interested & connected recently in the matters of the management than they were some time back. The author also claims that this notion that the workers are not bothered about the issues of the management is false, in fact they are more connected to the matters of the management. The author has mentioned the findings of the survey to back up his claim. The Author fails to consider a lot of factors while considering the conclusion and jumps to the conclusion on the account of the survey findings.

Firstly, the Author readily assumes that the Survey, which is used by the author as a premise for the conclusion, is not biased in any way. There may be various reasons for the survey to be biased. Some examples of biased survey are: the survey questions are not framed properly and creates a kind of confusion in the mind of the survey participants; the participants of the survey are a part of the workers union and the union has dedicated them to fill the results to create a biased result which is different from the actual scenario.

Secondly, the author fails to mention the type of industry in which the author has mentioned the survey about vs the industry the author has compared to (Outdated Notion reference).The results may vary in the case of a manual labour industry and in the case of the industry which has an automation in the manufacturing process.

The argument would be much more convincing if the author mentions additional data such as demographics (location, age group of the workers & the size of the industry; large company, small company or a start-up Company). The Author can add the data that nowadays many companies are incorporating the feedback of the workers to improve the process and productivity, in fact some workers after proper training and grooming are promoted as Line or Shift In-charge.

In summary the author needs to add more details of the type of the industry, demographics, Workers background(union or non union), Manual or automation industry and the age of the company. These additional points will either strengthen or weaken the author's argument.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

AWA Score: 4.5 out of 6!

I have used a GMATAWA auto-grader to evaluate your essay.

Coherence and connectivity: 3.5/5  
This rating corresponds to the flow of ideas and expressions from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analyzed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.

Paragraph structure and formation: 5/5   
The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs are evaluated. To score well on this parameter, it is important to organize the attempt into paragraphs. Preferable to follow the convention of leaving a line blank at the end of each paragraph, to make the software aware of the structure of the essay.

Vocabulary and word expression: 4/5 
This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocabulary possessed by the candidate basis the word and expression usage. There are no extra- points for bombastic word usage. Simple is the best form of suave!

Good Luck

jackd012 · Answer

“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.”

This argument states that the common notions that workers are apathetic about management issues is false. The argument goes to state that if not false, this notion is outdated. It uses the results of a recently published survey to state that 79% percent of the nearly 1200 workers who responded to survey questionnaires expressed a high level of interest in the topics of corporate restructuring and design of benefits programs. Given the reasoning and lack of evidence, this argument seems flawed on many levels. The assertion made based on the details provided seems to be disconnected and more of a wishful thinking than a logical conclusion.

Firstly, the argument cites as the foundation of its claim a recently published survey but fails to provide any details of the said survey. It neither tells us about the origins of the survey nor the authenticity of the magazine in which it was published. For example, it could be the case that this survey was published in a sports magazine or a business magazine. The context and audience to which either of these magazines caters to would be vastly different and hence, the survey would have radically different questions and meaning to those taking the survey as well as to those reading it.

Secondly, the statistics presents the fact that 79% of the 1200 workers showed an interest. However, it completely fails to delineate the break up of this pool. Was it just males or just females or a mix of both the genders? Was this survey focused on gender equity in leadership or addressing general questions about the industry leaders? Moreover, the survey does not state whether the participants of this survey were young individuals or seasoned leaders themselves participating. It is quite natural for an experienced individual contributor to be interested in pivoting into management but the same cannot be said about a young fresh out of college graduate who is starting to learn the ropes of his or her job.

Thirdly, the argument fails to shed a light on the 'high' level of interest shown by the workers. The high level of interest is qualitative and fails to quantify the amount of interest in the areas mentioned in the argument. On the contrary, it would be prudent to ask about the kind of survey questions and the confidence with which such high level of interest could be established. The details of the survey might be objective or they may be purely subjective which would make the interpretation of the survey takers hard to quantify. As such, it would be a near impossible task to state with confidence if the survey indicates high level of interest.

Lastly, there is no linkage provided between the topics of corporate restructuring and redesign of benefits and those of management. In fact, these topics form a very small subset of the overall subject of management. Hence, it would be premature to conclude that interest in these two subjects would correlate to interest in management. What if the survey takers were specialists in these two subjects and therefore, had a proclivity to express interest in matters concerning them. It could also be the case that this survey was presented to the 1200 workers up for promotion and as a result they were either already keen on learning about these topics or were forced to answer positively to increase their chances of getting promoted.

In accordance with the faults cited above, we can conclude that this argument is not convincing as it stands. There are a lot of missing data points and connections in this argument. The argument could have been more convincing if the author had provided more information about the origin of the survey, the magazine it was published in or the background of the workers taking the survey. It would have been tremendously helpful to have known about the quality of questions asked in the survey and the basis on which the survey was judged. An understanding of the motivations of the workers taking the survey would have helped us eliminate some key issues from this argument. Therefore, we can conclude that the argument does not hold any merit and needs a lot more information to make it cogent.

Hi, I am new to this forum and planning to take the GMAT soon. Could I request someone to take a look at my humble attempt of answering this prompt and let me know about their thoughts. 
Thank you!

Sajjad1994 · Answer

AWA Score: 5.5 out of 6

Coherence and connectivity: 5/5  
This rating corresponds to the flow of ideas and expressions from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analyzed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.

Paragraph structure and formation: 4/5  
The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs are evaluated. To score well on this parameter, it is important to organize the attempt into paragraphs. Preferable to follow the convention of leaving a line blank at the end of each paragraph, to make the software aware of the structure of the essay.

Vocabulary and word expression: 4/5 
This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocabulary possessed by the candidate basis the word and expression usage. There are no extra- points for bombastic word usage. Simple is the best form of suave!

Good Luck

ShivangiGoswami · Answer

Could you please rate my essay! Would really appreciate any feedback!!

The editorial states that worker's apathy towards management issues has changed and workers show a high level of interest in topics such as corporate restructuring and redesign of benefit programs. This claim is based of a survey which indicates 79 % of 1 ,200 people survey have shown an interest in the topics mentioned above. However, the cited conclusion is poor in terms of wholesome consideration and lacks any solid foundation because of no substantial evidence. The following flaws are debatable.

Firstly, the editorial talks about management issues, which contains many other topics other than corporate restructuring and redesigning of benefit programs. These two topics can be simplified to job layoffs and job pay benefits, which mainly concerns the workers surveyed. So it is justifiable to find a keen interest in matters that are of primary importance to the workers since it directly affects them. We don't have any other information about worker's interest in topics like time management, poor communications, upskilling, etc. that are also common management issues.

Secondly, we are not aware of the size of the company. The company can have employees anywhere from 1 ,200 workers to 20 ,000+ workers. We can't be sure if this sample size taken by the survey justifies the generalization of the interest of the entire employee population. The editorial is also basing it's conclusion on a sole piece of evidence. Only one survey is used to come to the conclusion that workers are interested in management issues. Maybe if other surveys are taken, with different questions, we might have more insights and maybe conclude something different.

The editorial needs to consider the above before coming to the conclusion that worker's apathy towards management issue is false. This allegation might well still be true. To get a solid conclusion we need to know if a small population of the entire employee population was surveyed for this survey, if in the survey other topics of management issues also showed a good percentage of worker's keen level of interest and if there are any other supporting documents, research or surveys to help understand our argument better.

At the moment, the editorial lacks research as well as it's argument is based out of flawed logic and therefore we can't conclude anything based off of the evidence cited in it. If we have more information as stated above, we might be able to come to a better conclusion about worker's interest in management issues.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

AWA Score: 5 out of 6

Coherence and connectivity: 3.5/5  
This rating corresponds to the flow of ideas and expressions from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analyzed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.

Paragraph structure and formation: 4/5  
The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs are evaluated. To score well on this parameter, it is important to organize the attempt into paragraphs. Preferable to follow the convention of leaving a line blank at the end of each paragraph, to make the software aware of the structure of the essay.

Vocabulary and word expression: 4.5/5  
This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocabulary possessed by the candidate basis the word and expression usage. There are no extra- points for bombastic word usage. Simple is the best form of suave!

Good Luck

Chimoma · Answer

Please rate my essay.

The argument that workers are not generally apathetic about management issues or that this notion is outdated omits important information that needs to be addressed. The statement made concerning the survey showing a high level of interest by employees in the topics of corporate restructuring and redesign of benefits programs does little to fully support the argument. This information alone does not compose a logical argument in favor of employees caring about management issues, and it does not provide support for the main argument.

Most importantly, the argument does not address the conditions the survey was administered under, the number of workers available to take the survey, or the impact of the content of the survey on response levels. First, the argument does not provide any information concerning how this survey was brought to employees. If there was an incentive to complete the survey, this may have prompted more employees to respond. Moreover, if answers to the survey could not be private to receive a reward, this also may have prompted employees to respond more favorably to the content covered in the survey.

Second, the argument does not give the total number of employees that were available to take the survey. As stated in the newsletter, the survey gives information only about the workers who responded. The impact of this survey differs if 1,200 workers out of a possible 10,000 responded or if 1,200 workers out of a possible 1,300 responded.

Finally, the argument does not address the impact of the topics discussed in the survey on employee interest levels. Corporate restructuring and a redesign of a benefits program are both topics that greatly influence the work life of employees as they can change how employees are managed or the employees work life balance. There is no indication given that if the survey discussed a different management issue such as the style of documents given to clients or changes to the company email that employees would respond in the same level.

Because the argument leaves out several key issues, it is not sound or persuasive. If it included the items discussed above, the argument would have been much more thorough and convincing. In order to evaluate the merit of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all the contributing factors.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

AWA Score: 5.5 out of 6

Coherence and connectivity: 5/6
The essay is well-organized, with clear introduction, body, and conclusion sections. The writer's ideas are presented logically and effectively connected, with each paragraph building on the previous one. However, the transition between the second and third paragraphs could have been smoother.

Word structure: 6/6
The writer uses a variety of sentence structures and employs precise language to convey their ideas. There are no instances of awkward phrasing or unclear sentence constructions.

Paragraph structure and formation: 5.5/6
Each paragraph has a clear topic sentence that is followed by supporting details and evidence. The writer uses examples and explanations effectively to support their argument. However, the third paragraph could have been broken down into two smaller paragraphs for better organization.

Language and grammar: 5.5/6
The writer demonstrates strong command of language and grammar, with only a few minor errors in subject-verb agreement and preposition usage.

Vocabulary and word expression: 5.5/6
The writer uses a range of vocabulary to express their ideas effectively. However, there could have been more variation in word choice in some instances.

Overall, the essay is well-written and effectively presents a well-reasoned critique of the argument provided. The writer's use of evidence and analysis of assumptions demonstrates their critical thinking skills, and their attention to detail ensures that their ideas are conveyed effectively. The essay could be further improved with smoother transitions and more varied vocabulary. Therefore, the essay is awarded a score of 5.5 out of 6.

The common notion that workers are generally apathetic about managemen

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