Please help to review this AWA

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Please help to review this AWA

by Abhijit K » Sun Feb 15, 2015 4:06 am
The following appeared in a report issued by a Marketing Director:

Over the past two years, our website has converted a consistent 3% of its visitors into sales, with very little fluctuation. Clearly, then, our goal for the upcoming year should be to raise the number of visitors to our site by any means necessary. If we can double our number of visitors by casting a wider net on pay-per-click advertising and by creating site content that is more search-engine friendly, we'll double our sales.

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.


The author argues that if he increases the number of visitors to his website the sales will increase proportionately. However, the authors argument is flawed because of unjustified assumptions and faulty reasoning.

The author assumes that with the increase in visitors the sales will also increase proportionately. However, there can be a case where the number of visitors has increased but the sales have not picked up in the same proportion. Thus, a doubling of the visitors would not double the sales as the author argues.The visitors may increase from 100 to 200 but the customers might increase from 3 to 5.

The second flaw in the argument is that the author argues that increasing the number of visitors is the only way to increase the sales. However, if we can increase our percentage of visitors that materialise into sales we can still achieve an increase in sales with the same customer base.For eg, Currently, we have 100 visitors and 3 materialise into sales. If we increase this 3% to say 10% we have actually tripled our sales keeping the same customer base.

Another assumption made by the author is that all the products provided by the author to its customer are of supreme quality and they require no upgradation. However, if the products are not of good quality the website can increase its sales just by providing some superior quality products to the visitors and no further increase in visitors will be required. For instance, if better quality customers are provided on the website more of the visitors will materialise into sales and increase the hit ratio without an increase in the number of visitors.

Thus, the authors assumption is flawed as he fails to elaborate other methods to increase sales like good quality products, higher hit ratio,etc. He also assumes a direct relationship between viewership and sales which is nowhere justified in the argument. Therefore the authors argument is flawed becasue of faulty reasoning and unjustified assumptions.

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by Katharine@GMATPrepNow » Sun Feb 15, 2015 8:58 am
Hello Abhijit,

Overall I thought this essay was better than the other one you posted. Great job persevering in your AWA practice.

Writing: There are minor errors: "authors" without an apostrophe occurred a few times, and "for eg" instead of "for example." I found fewer mistakes in this response than your previous essay, so I'm guessing that you had time to proofread before submitting this essay.

Structure: Your intro restated the argument of the essay prompt right away, which showed me that you understood the argument in the prompt. There could have been one more sentence in the intro to make it paragraph length, but that's not as important as having strong content. The conclusion also restated the biggest flaw in the argument and showed why the argument was not valid. The body paragraphs have improved from the last essay.

Arguments/Examples: In this essay you used examples to show what could happen if sales/visitors did not increase proportionally. This is an improvement from the last essay in which you did not include any statistics. I thought that your first two body paragraphs were strongest, and the third body paragraph was a little weaker. That's all right, because you put that paragraph last, but I think that you could have improved the third example. You switched from talking about high quality products to better quality customers, which I didn't understand.

Suggestions for Improvement: This essay is better than the previous essay you posted, which should be reassuring to you. I'd put this essay in the 4-5 range: points were lost for writing errors and issues in the last body paragraph. At this point you may want to do one more practice essay or move on to studying for other areas of the GMAT, so think carefully about the best way to use your time.
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by cg0588 » Thu Jun 18, 2015 5:18 am
Hi Katharine,

Thanks for your feedback on my other essay (Federville Farms). I tried to implement the improvements you suggested in this 2nd attempt. Would you mind reviewing and providing your thoughts?

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Using evidence which states that 3% of a website's visitors were converted into sales over the last two years, the Marketing Director of that website issued a report which hypothesized that the website could double its sales by doubling its number of visitors. To draw in double the number of visitors, the website plans to cast a wider net on pay-per-click advertising and create content that is more search-engine friendly. While sales may increase after pay-per-click advertising targets additional demographics and new content is made to be more search-engine friendly, the report does not consider the ramifications of such business decisions on the number of existing website visitors. In addition, the report makes the assumption that the percentage of sales is the same per visitor.

While expanding the target demographics for pay-per-click advertisements on the website could drive additional visitors to the website, the business decision to dilute the focus of the original pay-per-click advertisements may inadvertently alienate the website's current user base. If, for example, the website currently displays a significant amount of advertising catering to the travel needs of business professionals and derives a significant percentage of its sales from clicks on such advertisements, a sharp pivot to displaying advertisements geared towards the leisure traveler may drive away the business professionals who come to the website for one singular purpose. Losing the website's target audience in an attempt to diversify advertised products and services may cause sales to stagnate or even decrease.

In addition, creation of website content that is more search-engine friendly may not lead to an increase in number of visitors, especially if content is not the main draw of website visitors. The Marketing Director assumes that more visible content will lead to more website visitors; however, if the majority of the website's visitors visit the website for the images displayed and view content as superfluous, an increase in the amount of search-engine friendly website will not lead to an increase in number of visitors.

Lastly, the Marketing Director's assumption that doubling the number of visitors will double sales assumes each visitor who is converted contributes the same amount to website sales. For example, if the website is Buzzfeed.com and has 1 million visitors per year, the according to the website's evidence, each year 3%, or 30,000, visitors are converted driving $30,000 in sales. However, if 5,000 of the 30,000 visitor are responsible for $25,000 of the sales, then the acquisition of visitors is not directly correlated to increase in sales; the final sales figure would depend on which group of visitors, those similar to the 5,000 or remaining 25,000, the website can attract with a wider net on pay-per-click advertising and more search-engine friendly content.

The report's conclusion, that the website can double its sales by doubling the number of website visitors via a pay-per-click advertising campaign targeting a wider audience and by creating site content that is more search-engine friendly, wrongly assumes that the website's actions will not alienate its current visitor base responsible for sales, that content is the main driver of website traffic, and that each website visitor converted to sales contributes the same amount to sales. Additional insight into the preferences and behaviors of the website's current visitors, including both those converted into sales and those that are not converted, is needed before any business decisions are proposed that would lead to a doubling of website sales.

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by Katharine@GMATPrepNow » Thu Jun 18, 2015 11:41 am
Hello cg0588,

Glad that you found the feedback helpful! It's usually best to start a new thread in the forum when you write a new essay, but I'm happy to give my comments on this response.

Writing: I didn't notice any major writing errors.

Structure: Great job extending this essay to a full five paragraphs! My only concern is that you may not have written this essay within the 30 minute time limit. Did that happen in this response?

Arguments/Examples: You used both qualitative and quantitative examples of how the author's reasoning could be flawed, which strengthened your argument. I think you've showed a clear understanding of how to write AWAs, and you've improved from the previous response.

Suggestions for Improvement: I can't think of a reason why this essay could lose points, unless you exceeded the time limit. If you were able to write this under 30 minutes and had a few minutes left to check your work, I think you may want to study other areas of the exam.

If you have specific questions, please let me know.

Best,
Katharine
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