GMAT Essays (AWA)

"Local clothing stores reported that their profits decreased, on average, for the three-month period between August 1 and October 31. Stores that sell products for the home reported that, on average, their profits increased during this same period. Clearly, consumers are choosing to buy products for their homes instead of clothing. To take advantage of this trend, we should reduce the size of our clothing departments and enlarge our home furnishings and household products departments."


In the preceding argument , the author claims that because the profits of clothing stores have decreased whereas the profits of the home product stores have increased, so he suggests to reduce the clothing department and enlarge the home furnishing department. Though the author's claim may well have some merit, but the author presents a poorly reasoned argument based on several questionable premises and assumptions, and based solely on the evidence that author offers we cannot accept his argument as valid.

The primary issue with the author's reasoning lies in his unsubstantiated premises. The author claims that consumers are buying home products instead of clothes. What if these customer for each product is different. The author gives no information if the same customers who bought clothes earlier are buying home products now. The author also mentions that profits of the clothing stores have decreased . But , the author does not tell if the decrease is same in all the stores and on all types of clothes. For example , if maximum stores sell summer clothes in winters , then people wont buy them, thus , reducing their profit. The author's premise , the basis of his argument , lack any legitimate evidentary support and thus, render his conclusion invalid.

In addition, the author makes several assumptions that remain unproven. The author assumes that the trend will remain the same . The data is just for 3 months, so we cannot assume that it will remain the same in future. The author fails to consider that home furnishing items are purchased once in 10 years, but clothing are purchased year after year. So enlarging home furnishings can be a bad idea. The author weakens his argument by making assumption and failing to provide its proper explication.

In conclusion , the argument is flawed and thus, unconvincing. The author can strengthen his argument by mentioning relevant facts like the reason of the declining of the clothing stores. The author can also provide more statistics on the percentage decrease and the percentage increase on the clothing and household items respectively. If the author truly wants to change his reader's mind on the issue, he would have to largely restructure his argument, fix flaws in his logic, clearly explicate his argument. Without these things , the author's poorly reasoned argument is likely to convince few people.