In general, people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago abou

Question

Hello all,

I just started studying for the GMAT and I was wondering if I could get some feedback on my essay as the practice exams do not mark the essay portion of the test. Any advice is welcome. Thanks in advance.

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 whole-grain 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 ofthe 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. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counter examples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.

My essay:

The argument being discussed in this news article is that in general people are not as concerned about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses as they were a decade ago. This argument is based on very weak reasoning. The following two paragraphs will explain why these reasons are weak.

The first piece of evidence the author used was that Heart's Delight started selling cheeses with high butterfat content. However, this does not mean that people are less concerned about regulating their intake of fatty cheeses. The store might have just wanted to expand their inventory selection in order to increase revenue. Also people can buy as much cheese as they want but it does not mean they consume it in high quantities at a time. They could also be buying some of the cheese to give away as a gift or put it out on a tray for a family and friends get together. The multitude of reasons behind people buying cheese weakens the authors argument.

The next piece of evidence the author used in their argument was the fact that a restaurant called House of Beef, which presumably sells meat products, was doing a lot better in terms of revenue than Good Earth Cafe, which is a vegetarian restaurant. Using this evidence to make the assumption people are not concerned about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses is weak. House of Beef could be doing better for a multitude of reasons such as better management, wider variety of menu options and is better advertised. Also a vegetarian restaurant is a niche restaurant and could be seen as unattractive to someone who isnt a vegetarian. The reason the owners of the new House of Beef restaurant are millionaires could be that they own other restaurants as well and not that they just serve red meat. This assumption that the author made about why the House of Beef is more doing better than the Good Earth Cafe makes for weak evidence for the argument.

Overall, the argument that people are not as concerned about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses based on the two pieces of evidence provided is a weak argument. The author uses observational assumptions that have no researched facts behind them. This proves the argument is weak.

prateekchugh · Answer

Your essay is good. One more point you can add is representativeness. If the butter and cheese available in one one restaurant and even if one non-veg rest. revenue is good, then this does not mean it shows that every area in this town in selling Non veg. It can be said that other areas is having more veg rest. and people love to visit those rest.

Cause and effects: There are many reason why restaurant is selling non veg items and why other restaurants owners are rich (this again you have shown)

Correlation: Revenue is high does not mean consumption is high (this point you already shown)

Overall your essay is quite good.

TheGraceful · Answer

The essay, would get a rating around the mean average, say 4.

Scope of improvement that I see is, you can add at least one more weakner and that means one more paragarph.
Another point that's noticeable is subject verb agreement errors are quite noticeable; e.g. author... their... could be corrected author...his...

Overall essay is good.

I would also suggest to keep this part at the end of prepartion and focus more on verbal and quant sections.

plaverbach · Answer

I think that studying SC might help you, so you will improve a bit effortless

Posted from my mobile device

Soumyadeeppal · Answer

Can somebody please rate my essay?

Thanks

The argument claims that people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses. Stated in this way the argument has manipulated facts and presents a distorted view of the situation. The argument also fails to mention several key factors on the basis of which it can be evaluated. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no substantive evidence. Hence the argument is weak and has several flaws.

First the argument readily assumes that people weren’t as concerned as they were a decade ago about the regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheese. The statement is a stretch as the author didn’t provide any substantive evidence for backing that. For example, the data of the rate of the consumption of meat and beef a decade ago and the relevant data of the current period. Clearly, if we without this data the argument isn’t substantive. The argument could have been much clearer if it had stated that the percentage of consumption of meat and cheese per capita population have increased currently compared to a decade ago.
Secondly, the author claims that since a since the owner of the beef store is millionaire and since a vegetable store is making a modest living so that means people have increased their consumption of meat and cheese. This is again very weak as the author fails to provide any relationship between the income of the stores and the meat consumption of the people. To illustrate, just because the owner of beef store is rich doesn’t mean that people are consuming more meat than before. If the argument had provided that the sale of that particular store is representative of the sale of the sale of meat in general then the argument could have been strengthened.

Finally, the argument fails to mention one of the key factors on the basis of which it can be evaluated. What if the owner of the meat store was already a millionaire 10 years ago and was the vegetable store making a modest living 10 years ago too. Is the sale of the vegetable store less because of other reasons such as bad customer service? Without convincing answers to these questions, one is left with the view that the claim is more of a wishful thinking than substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. The argument could have been strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts. In order to assess the merits/demerits of a situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all the contributing factors. In this particular case, the factors that are mentioned above. Without this information, the argument is unsubstantiated and open to debate.

bb · Answer

AWA Score: 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 idea and expression from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analysed. 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 is 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 vocaubulary 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!

Please do not forget to use the Chineseburnt AWA Template! https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6 ... 64327.html

In general, people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago abou

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