GMAT Essays (AWA)

Good evening from London!

I would be extremely grateful if you could please rate my practice AWA essay by the poll that is (hopefully) attached to this post.

Any additional comments or feedback would also be much appreciated!

Thanks again,
Olamide
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Question

The following appeared as part of an article reviewing summer camps for children.

Parents, if you need a summer camp for your children look no further than Federville Farms. In a recent survey, Federville Farms ranked first in both overall camper satisfaction and in food quality, and second in the variety of outdoor activities. Federville Farms has been family owned and operated for over forty years, so you have nothing to worry about when it comes to your child's safety, and it employs more Red Cross certified lifeguards than any other camp in the state. If you seek the best camp experience for your children, Federville Farms is the best choice you can make.

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 counterexamples 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.
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Answer

The extract above has been taken from an article reviewing summer camps for children, in which the writer has reasonably assumed that the target audience of the article will be parents that are interested in sending their children to such summer camps. This is evidenced by its opening address to such parents.

The purpose of this article appears to be the promotion of Federville Farms, as the writer explicitly states that parents should "look no further than Federville Farms" when considering which summer camp to send their children to. Such a purpose is reasonable, although the inclusion of this extract in an article reviewing summer camps (which infers that it would equally assess and evaluate more than one camp) may be questioned.

In light of this purpose, the writer has attempted to substantiate its claim that parents should look no further than Federville Farms by addressing concerns that parents might have when choosing a summer camp to send their children to; namely, camper satisfaction and food quality, variety of outdoor activities, and safety.

If we take each in turn, firstly, the writer notes that Federville Farms was ranked first in both overall camper satisfaction and food quality, as well as it being ranked second in the variety of outdoor activites, as examples of Federville Farm's superiority. However, the writer does not offer any detail on the survey from which such conclusions have been drawn, such as, number of participants, and/or the number of other summer camps to which Federville Farms was compared in the survey (if any), and therefore, this is not a conclusive example of Federville Farms' superiority in either camper satisfaction and food quality, or variety of outdoor activities. The writer could strengthen this claim by providing further detail on the survey, which would allow readers to make an informed decision as to Federville Farms' ranking in both categories, as well as providing anecdotal examples from past campers.

Secondly, the writer notes that Federville Farms has been family owned and operated for over forty years, and as a result, parents have nothing to worry about as it relates to their children's safety. Whilst the apparent longevity of Federville Farms' summer camps is a positive attribute, it does not in itself demonstrate that parents have nothing to worry about with regards to safety. Moreover, as safety will likely be a key concern for parents sending their children to summer camps, the writer would have to do more to satisfy parents' demand for high levels of safety. The writer further notes that Federville Farms employs more Red Cross certified lifeguards than any other camp in the state, which goes further than the initial argument as to the camp's longevity in addressing the legitimate concern of safety. As such, the writer could link its claim of superior safety directly to this example, and use the camp's longevity to support another argument.

The conclusion that the writer has drawn appears to be premature, and further information, as discussed above, would need to be provided to parents in order to convince them that Federville Farms is the best choice they can make.