GMAT Essays (AWA)

Argument:

The following proposal was made by a dean of Beneatton University:
For the last two years Socrato vocational college has been offering a job opportunity program and it has been highly successful. More than 80% of all fresher's at Socrato enrolled in this optional program; 95% of these students got job offers within a couple of months after their graduation. Former students who had undergone this training program have been very successful in their careers. To ensure that we too accomplish our academic goals better, we should seriously think of adopting a similar program for our students and we should actively encourage all of them to participate in this program.

Analysis:

The author in the argument compares his university to Socrato Vocational College(SVC). He states that SVC has been successful in attracting candidates for its program where the chances of getting a job are higher after the program. In the preceding statement the author claims that" To ensure that we too accomplish our academic goals better, we should seriously think of adopting a similar program for our students and we should actively encourage all of them to participate in this program". Though this claim may well have merit, the author presents a poorly reasoned argument, based on several questionable premises and assumptions, and based solely on the evidence the author offers: we cannot accept his argument as valid.

The primary issue in author's reasoning lies in his unsubstantiated premises. The success of SVC may be for other reasons, for eg: there may be job opportunities in the area where SVC is established or Candidates of SVC may be preferred over other colleges. Also, the fresher's may have received job after graduation not only because of the program but also because of their overall grades. Former students would have been successful in their career because of their hard work, so it is not necessary that the freshly graduate students will also be successful, they may or may not achieve success. The author premises, the basis for his argument, lack any legitimate evidentiary support, and render his conclusion unacceptable.

In addition, the author makes several assumptions that remain unproven. Firstly, the comparison made between SVC and Beneatton university(BU) is false i.e. if the program worked in SVC, it is not certain that the program will work in BU. Furthermore, even if the students are encouraged to join the program, we cannot be certain that they will definitely join it. Also, success of SVC may be due to other sources as well, but the author assumes the opposite. The author weakens his argument by failing to provide explication of links between SVC's success in the program to BU's success on starting a similar program he assumes exixts.

While the author does have some key issues in his premises and assumptions, that is not to say that the entire argument is without base. The author can provide more examples to support his argument. He can establish links with SVC's program and can also conduct analysis to get approximate success rate. Similarly, he can provide details as to why the SVC program is a success? and how can a similar program be definitely a success if adopted by BU, etc. Though there are several issues with authors reasoning at present, with research and clarification he could improve his argument significantly.

In sum, the author's illogical argument is based on unsupported premises and unsubstantiated assumptions; that render his conclusion invalid. The assumption made by author that what happened in SVC will also happen in BU if a similar program is adopted is absurd. Also, the program details are not mentioned, which helps us to know whether similar program can be adopted by BU or not. If the author truly hopes to change his readers mind, he would have to largely restructure his argument, fix the flaws in his logic, clearly explicate his assumptions, and provide evidentiary support. Without these things, the poorly reasoned argument, will likely convince few people.