GMAT Essays (AWA)

The following appeared in a memorandum from the business department of the Apogee Company:
"In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our city's art museums has increased by a similar percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television, where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened with severe cuts, we can expect that attendance at our city's art museums will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city's funds for supporting the arts should be reallocated to public television."
According to the latest citywide poll the percentage among the residents watching television programs about visual arts increased for 15 percent compared to the numbers 5 years ago, moreover the number of people visiting the city's art museums has increased by the same number in the given period. The statement asserts that, due to the fact that the government made a decision to cut down the budget for the visual arts programs, there is a big concern that this decision might also influence the number of people attending city's art museums. Thus, the passage suggests that a part of the budget allocated to the city museums should be transferred to the public television. The conclusion relies on assumptions, for which there is no clear evidence. Therefore, the argument is rather weak, unconvincing, and has several flaws.

First, the statement would have benefited if the author had given some sort of information on the overall economic situation of the country and also some facts on the development of the city in a 5 year period. The reason for the increase in numbers of people watching art programs more than 5 years ago may be the current financial crisis and the rise of the unemployment rate. It can be argued that if a person is unemployed he can potentially spend more time watching television programs or going to different places including museums than if a person is employed on a full time basis.
Second, it is not reasonable to assume that if the number of visual art programs decrease on Television people will begin to attend museums less frequently. It can be argued the opposite that due to the fact that government has made a decision that it will abolish a part of funds for the visual art programs for television, the number of people who are interested in arts will start to attend museums more often to fill the gaps left by the government's decision to cut the part of funds. Consequently, it would be profitable for the museums to lower the prices for the ticket entry to the museum to motivate more people to attend visual arts museums habitually.
Finally, the television management responsible for the visual arts program may carry out a survey among those people who are interested in watching visual arts, whether they are willing to donate some money to the channel in order to watch their preferred program. This might appear to be more money saving than going to museums more often.
To sum up, we can argue that the statement was poor reasoned, due to the fact that it failed to provide empirical database on the subject matter. A deeper and more detailed scrutiny would give more background to the argument