GMAT Essays (AWA)

"The Cumquat Café began advertising on our local radio station this year and was
delighted to see its business increase by 10 percent over last year's totals. Their
success shows you how you can use radio advertising to make your business more
profitable."

Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.

->

The argument that the radio advertising would make a business more profitable is weak and unconvincing. The author assumes that the business increase of The Cumquat Cafe has a positive correlation with radio advertising. This might not be so, as it is possible that the business increase derives from different reasons.

In order to strengthen the argument I would like to conduct a customer's survey, checking the ratio of new customers who came to the Cafe Cumquat as a respond to the radio commercial, to the total new customers. If it is found that the proportion is high, than it could serve to support the argument that the radio advertising contributes to the profitability of a business. In addition the owner of the Cafe mentioned that over last year he didn't change anything in the business. This fact strength the possibility that the business increase is due to the radio advertising and not other reasons.

In his argument the author assumes that the radio advertising was the main factor that is responsible for the business success, while it is known that The Cumquant Cafe has also advertised over national TV, newspapers and internet. Therefore there is high possibility that the business increase mentioned above was due to advertisements in the various medias. Moreover, in the 3 years prior to last year, The Cumquat Cafe experienced a solid increase of 20% per year without advertising in the radio, a fact which undermines the positive affect of radio advertising.

In summary, the argument presented is neither sound nor persuasive as it lies on questionable assumptions about the affect of radio advertising, lacks important data about how much of the business increase is a attributed to the radio adverting, and fails to take into account possible alternative explanations for the causes of the business increase.

Hi

Good altogether

Do not go into specifics in the Intro- no need to- Your first sentence is great- start with a paraphrase of the premise(s) and conclusion and the last sentence of the intro should simply be that the logic is flawed.

You paragraphing is off.

Your second paragraph starts with how the author should strengthen the conclusion? AND you use "I"- Please do not do so.

A body paragraph (of which you should have 2 minimum and max 3) should contain:

-What the flawed assumption is
-A further explanation of that flaw (why it is flawed)
-Recommendation on how the author can strengthen the argument


You have the right points but they are simply not well organized. I would like to see a 3rd Body paragraph.

The conclusion is good.

I would score this at about a 3-3.5

You know what you are doing now you simply ned to organize it accordingly.

Your essay is generally well-written but feels incomplete.
Most essay prompts offer at least 3 major flaws/assumptions.
The goal of the essay is to point out these assumptions and to show how each can be strengthened.
The prompt above makes the following assumptions:

1. The radio advertising led to the increase in business.
2. An increase in business = profitability.
3. What is true for the Cumquat will be true for other businesses.

Your essay does a good job addressing assumption 1 but neglects to address assumptions 2 and 3.
For this reason, I'd assign a score of 3.