Over the past decade, the restaurant industry in the country of Spiess

Question

Please evaluate the following argument. (I am not happy with the way it turned out, I felt I could not make a convincing argument here)

Over the past decade, the restaurant industry in the country of Spiessa has experienced unprecedented growth. This surge can be expected to continue in the coming years, fueled by recent social changes: personal incomes are rising, more leisure time is available, single-person households are more common, and people have a greater interest in gourmet food, as evidenced by a proliferation of publications on the subject.”

The news paper claims that that the restaurant industry in the country of Siesta is thriving owing to many social changes like rising personal incomes, availability of leisure time, increase in single person households. And this trend is expected to continue in future. This argument needs a closer evaluation to validate the merits of it.

Firstly the article claims that the trend in growth is expected to continue because of the afore mentioned factors, before coming to a conclusion it would be interesting to know if the market for restaurants has the market already matured. Where exactly on the growth curve is the restaurant industry in? Who are the new customers for the projected growth?

Secondly the article also claims that the recent spurt of publications on this subject implies people are interested in gourmet food and hence a projected increase restaurant business. An increase in number of articles is by no means an indication of future growth of the sector as a whole. It would also be interesting to know if the restaurant industry is funding these publications as a form of proxy marketing.

Thirdly, assuming that the increase in articles is because of reader interest, one would want to know how much of the casual interest shown by readers on articles actually translates in to paying customers for the restaurant industry. Also the increase in publication can be indicative of people being more interested in cooking exotic food for themselves rather than paying for it.

Though the argument has its merits, it would be unwise to qualify the article without answering the questions raise above.

rockroars · Answer

I particularly found this argument little hard, couldn't really spot solid gaps that easily.

Can any of you give me few more points here?

rockroars · Answer

Can someone help me here with some more ammunition?

VeritasPrepBrian · Answer

Hey rockroars,

One of the keys to these is looking at the prompt, which points out that you can use:

Assumptions
Ways to weaken the argument
Ways to strengthen the argument

Typically those go hand-in-hand, so if you don't find any "assumptions" per se, just ask yourself if you can come up with hypotheticals that would weaken the argument. Here are a few that come to mind for me:

-could a greater interest in gourmet food mean that people are more likely to want to cook it for themselves as opposed to going out for it?
-could the number of single-person households actually mean that fewer people are going out to eat? Maybe families/couples eat out more than singles?
-Are rising personal incomes sustainable? 
-Does "more leisure time" really correspond to more eating at restaurants? Couldn't that lead to more travel outside of Spiessa, or more people pursuing their own cooking/vegetable-gardening?

I find that a lot of times it's easier to propose weaknesses ("well, what if...?") and then retrofit the assumption. For example, that last point "people could want to cook or grow their own food more with more free time" points out the assumption that "more free time ---> more restaurant patronage"

I hope that helps...

rockroars · Answer

Thanks Brian

manpreet0511 · Answer

Can some one evaluate my AWA?

The following appeared as part of an article in the travel section of a newspaper:
“Over the past decade, the restaurant industry in the country of Spiessa has experienced unprecedented growth. This surge can be expected to continue in the coming years, fueled by recent social changes: personal incomes are rising, more leisure time is available, single-person households are more common, and people have a greater interest in gourmet food, as evidenced by a proliferation of publications on the subject.”
Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc

As part of an article in the travel section of a newspaper, argument opines that unprecedented growth in the restaurant industry, as seen in previous decade, can be expected to continue in the country of Spiessa owning to recent social changes. However, because of several reasons as discussed in subsequent paragraphs, argument provides meagre and dubious support for its claim.

First, argument involves ambiguous language. For example, argument states that personal income is "rising". This is unfortunately an indefinite word. The word "rising" may indicate a rise of 30% which perhaps improve the lifestyle of residents of country of Spiessa. Alternatively, it can denote a rise of 2% on account of rise in inflation, and this meagre raise in income will certainly not cause people to start eating at restaurant more. As a consequence, restaurants' growth may stagger. Since, the evidence cited is opened to divergent interpretation and the argument's conclusion is merely an overstatement.

Second, argument assumes that because of proliferation of publications pertaining to gourmet food, people have greater interest in gourmet food and this interest will yield growth of restaurant industry. This is an invalid assumption. What if people are buying more publication on gourmet food because they have started cooking such foods at home rather than eating outside. In such scenario, restaurants' revenue may start declining. Having provided inconclusive information, argument draws untenably strong conclusion.

Third, argument fails to provide any reason for unprecedented growth in restaurant industry in past decade. One reason could be that more budgeted restaurants were opened during last decade and as a result, more middle class people, who form the major chunk of any populous, started eating frequently at restaurants. However, since now most people are already frequently consuming restaurant food, restaurant industry may stagnate at this level unless its customer base is significantly improved. Hence, the conclusion of the argument no longer holds.

In summary, argument is neither sound nor persuasive and is substantially flawed. Argument fails to convey any compelling reason to expect that the unprecedented growth experienced over last decade in the restaurant industry will continue in the coming years.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

AWA Score: 5 out of 6

I have used a GMAT AWA 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: 4.5/5   
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: 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

donu · Answer

Please help me analyze and score my essay. Thanks!

The argument in the travel section of the newspaper expresses that the restaurant industry in Spiessa has enjoyed unexpected growth in the last ten years and suggests that the growth trend is expected to continue in the coming years as a result of a plethora of social changes such as a rise in personal income, increased availability of leisure time, and greater interest in gourmet food. However, this argument is based on several unsupported assumptions and fails to discuss other key factors that are necessary in evaluting its conclusion. Therefore, the argument is unconvincing, weak, and deeply flawed.

The first flaw of the argument lies in the fact that it assumes the restaurant industry in Spiessa will continue to experience unprecedented growth in the coming years because it has experienced significant growth in the past decade. However, this reasoning is flawed because past success or growth of an industry in a country is not indicative of future success. For example, in the early 2000s the “dot com” industry in the United States failed even after experiencing immense growth and success for some time; such example shows that prior success does not guarantee future success. Furthermore, the argument does not present a specific metric to show the growth of the industry. One is left to wonder whether the metric is revenue, profit, number of customers, etc. In addition one could argue that because the restaurant industry in Spiessa has already experienced so much growth that there is not much more room for that growth to continue at the unprecedented rate it already experienced. The argument could be made more convincing if it were to offer specific data and statistics of a specific metric to show that the growth of the industry in Spiessa is expected to continue at the suggested rate.

In addition, the argument presents several social changes that it suggests will promote the surge of the restaurant industry in the country. The argument is flawed because it does not show a clear positive relationship between these social changes and the growth rate of the industry. Without a clear relationship, it is vague how the increase in single-person households can boost the restaurant industry. One could argue that although more leisure time may become available, residents of Spiessa would spend it doing other activities like sports or family time instead of visiting more restaurants. Furthermore, if the restauarants do not primarily serve gourmet food, the increased interest in such foods may have little or no impact in promoting the growth of the industry. If the argument had provided evidence to support the claims that such social changes would continue the surge in the industry it would have been more convinving.

Finally, the argument fails to consider other factors that could hamper the growth of the industry. For example, increased food prices, animal diseases, supply chain issues, and other negative factors that impact any restaurant industry could occur which will disrupt the surge of the industry. The argument would have been much clearer by showing other factors that could disrupt the industry were unlikely to occur or could be mitigated.

In conclusion, this argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be strengthened by providing data that supports its claims of continued growth of the restaurant industry in Spiessa as well as the indsutry’s ability to mititgate potential disruptors. Without such evidence, the argument is weak and is open to debate.

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

Over the past decade, the restaurant industry in the country of Spiess

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