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14 Oct 2007, 20:26
GMAT Paper #37
Saw no repeats except on RC - familiar passages but still had to reread and reanalyze.
2 essays (18 mins & 13 mins)
PS - 16/16
SC - 18/22 (****!)
PS - 16/16
CR - 15/16 (wtf I got one wrong)
DS - 20/20
RC - 17/18
Times were 23, 27, 16, 24, 25, 16 minutes.
I have to review the SC, I still don't know how to do them, they were tough.
I got 51Q & 45V, which was 780. Time was 20 mins under time, and I did everything straight, except for RC prior to which I took a relaxing ****.
Essays are below (sorry about the bad wrapping I'll fix it later):
Essay 1
The following appeared in a magazine article on trends and lifestyles.
“In general, people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago about regulating their intake of
red meat and fatty cheeses. Walk into the Heart’s Delight, a store that started selling organic fruits
and vegetables and wholegrain flours in the 1960’s, and you will also find a wide selection of cheeses
made with high butterfat content. Next door, the owners of the Good Earth Café, an old vegetarian
restaurant, are still making a modest living, but the owners of the new House of Beef across the
street are millionaires.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion, be sure to analyze the line of
reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. You can also discuss what, if anything, would make
the argument more sound and persuasive or would help you to better evaluate its conclusion.
The argument that people are not as concerned about their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses
as they were a decade ago is grosslly flawed. Although one could possibly infer that this is the case,
based on the evidence given in that the owners of the house of beef are millionaires where as the
owners of the Good Earth Cafe are making a modest living, making such a logical jump is flawed.
First let us consider how one can come to such a conclusion. The author of this argument makes
several assumptions, the first being that because a store selling fatty cheeses implies the store did
not do this in the past, and we all can agree that cheese has been around for quite some time. The
second is that just because the store happens to sell fatty cheeses that everybody purchases fatty
cheeses-- which is flawed again. A healthy store for example may have Foui Gras, an extremely
fattening delicacy, on display, but this does not necessarily mean that people buy or are even able to
buy it, as Foui Gras is typically priced for the budgets of aristrocrats.
Now, do we even know what country we are referring to? What if the names of the restaurants have
been translated from French or Polish into English, and we are actually dealing with cafes and stores
in France or Poland? If this were the case, of course a health food store would be struggling to make
ends meet! Take France, long renowned for its national obsession with fine, or rather fatty, dining
and smoking. Poland itself has a long national tradition of eating Kielbasa, which is fatty pork
sausage, and Fatty Cheeses, smoking, and drinking Vodka. The authors arguments are indeed quite weak,
as neither of these two countries have ever been concerned about regulating their intake of red meat
and fatty cheeses, and most likely never will be.
To conjur such a far fetched conclusion based on several irrelevant facts is perposterous.
Perhaps if the author had cited surveys and statistical studies based on consumers intake of red meat
and fatty cheeses then it would have been reasonable to state such a conclusion. But to base the
conclusion of his argument on simple and unrepresentative observations of some delis in a
neighbourhood is weak and baseless. On that note, last week while I was driving I saw a new liquor
store going up beside a healthy fruit juice stand. The fruit juice stand is going out of business, but
the new liquor store is probably being built to meet demand. Following the authors logic, then
obviously more people must be becoming alcoholics!
Essay #2
Directions: In this section, you will need to analyze the issue presented below and explain your views
on it. The question has no “correct” answer. Instead, you should consider various perspectives as you
develop your own position on the issue.
Read the statement and the instructions that follow it, and then make any notes in your test booklet
that will help you plan your response. Begin writing your response on the separate answer document.
Make sure that you use the answer document that goes with this writing task.
“The rise of multinational corporations is leading to global homogeneity*. People everywhere are
beginning to want the same products and services, and regional differences are rapidly disappearing.”
*homogeneity: sameness, similarity
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion expressed above. Support your point
of view with reasons and/or examples based on your own experiences, your observations, or your
reading.
The rise of multinational corporations is indeed streamlining various products and services across
borders, so that one can find the same product in one country as one can find in another. Take KFC for
example; in my beloved Poland you can now find Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchises, which was quite the
shock to me when I returned the last time I visited. People do indeed crave cheap and fast food, and
multinational corporations are trying to expand their businesses into various international markets to
meet these demands. However, to introduce the same product in different markets is nearly impossible;
for example, McDonalds does have a base in India, where the cow is religiously revered by the Hindus.
Yet ironically McDonald's claim to fame has been the Big Mac, featuring two delicious and mouth
watering patties of beef. As you can see, McDonalds does not mainly sell beef in India for obvious
reasons, and instead have resorted to modifying the Big Mac to use others types of beef, such as pork
and chicken. In this sense the rise of transnational corporations has not and probably never will
completely lead to homogeneity, as cultural differences would prevent this from ever occuring.
In one sense, more familiar brands and faces are spawning up in the least expected places; African
teenagers wearing the newest and most fashionable Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses, Brazilian businessmen
driving Ferraris in the slums of Rio De Janerio and Afghanis buying Tim Hortons Coffee in the middle
of Kandahar. In this sense as economies of scale spawn and multinational corporations are able to
offer familiar products inexpensively, we will see more KFC's in Poland and more McDonald's in France.
However again as cultural differences are so vast, the homogeneity that this would produce would be
limited.
In Israel, a lot of people eat Kosher food, and various franchises have had to modify their menu
accordingly. In the Muslim world, a lot of people eat Halal, and again, many franchises have had to
modify their menu. And yes, in France, the thought of a McDonalds was so outrageous in a certain town
that rioters smashed it out of comission. So cultural differences do provide problems in a sense. And
again, what might prove popular in one country may not prove popular in another. McDonalds would fare
much better in Japan than in France, because in France the French value fine dining and food of high
quality. But in Japan, McDonalds is considered a delicacy, with the McDonalds Franchises there using
the highest cuts of beef and having squeeky clean restaurants.
Indeed, the rise of multinational corporations is leading to some degree of homogeneity-- this is
evident all around us. But cultural differences, and regional differences, will prevent corporations
from offering the same identical product and service uniformly throughout the world.
close
