Kindly review my AWA essay !

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Kindly review my AWA essay !

by cruzerkk » Sat Mar 28, 2015 5:54 am
The following appeared in a newspaper editorial.

As violence in movies increases, so do crime rates in our cities. To combat this problem we must establish a board to censor certain movies or we must limit admission to persons over 21 years of age. Apparently our legislators are not concerned about this issue since a bill calling for such actions recently failed to receive a majority vote.

Analysis :

The argument is weak for several underlying reasons. For instance, the very beginning of the argument is a vague statement without any proof whatsoever. There is also a case
being made to screen the violent movies only to people aged 21 or higher, which makes it sound like all the crime in our society are committed by under aged folks, which clearly
is wrong.

The argument assumes that violence in movies and crime rates in cities are directly proportional. Firstly, crime has been a part of our social culture long before
movies came into the picture. There is also no data or statistical analysis to support the statement being made. We really can not measure violence as a quantity to know
when it increases or decreases. Who is to decide what is the permissible amount of violence in a movie ? Person X may find a movie having barely 10 minutes of violence
to be extreme while there may be another Person Y who enjoys watching movies with a certain amount of violence in it. It is also the responsibility of civilized citizens to learn
from the good things that are shown in movies rather than focus on the violence. The argument would be better served had we been provided with some sort of data from which this
conclusion has been drawn.

Moving on to the next part of the argument, there is a suggestion made that admissions to violent movies should be limited to people over 21 years of age. Although one would argue that if children are exposed to movies with extremely violent content they may be influenced by it, he must also realize that most crimes in the world are committed by people aged 21 or above. Hence, just limiting people of a certain age would not really cause an overall effect in the reduction of crime rate. Rather a prelude could be shown before such movies educating all the movie goers, irrespective of their age, about the downsides of violence.

It has also been mentioned that legislators are not concerned about this issue because a bill failed to receive majority vote. It simply can not be concluded that just because a bill fails it means
that the legislators are not concerned. There are a number of criterias that a bill must fit into before it can be passed in the legislation. It is quite possible that some of these criterias were not
met. More light could have been thrown on what the actual content of the bill was, rather than just blaming the legislators for not passing it.

Because the argument does not hold sufficient strength on several issues it can be deemed weak and insufficient. If it addressed some of the alternate solutions mentioned above, it would be better served in
meeting it's objective.

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by Katharine@GMATPrepNow » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:18 am
Hello cruzerkk,

Writing: The formatting came out haphazardly in this response, so make sure you don't have so many line breaks on test day. I didn't take any points off for this. In a particular sentence you start with "one" and then switch to "he," so pick a term and stay consistent. You use "really" several times, but it's too casual in tone and should be avoided when possible in academic writing. "More light could have been thrown on...the content" sounds too much like a cliche: try "The author should have summarized the content" or something similar. In your final sentence, "it would be better served in meeting it's objective" is incredibly wordy! Try "The author could better support the argument" or something more straightforward.

Structure: Make sure that you summarize the author's argument right away in the intro. It's all right to mention the largest flaws in the intro, but that doesn't help the grader unless you've already restated the argument. I liked your body paragraphs. The conclusion didn't have anything to do with this prompt, so it felt too generic. It's all right to have a conclusion template, but you need to modify it to fit each essay. Including some of the key words from the author's point (movies, violence, age restriction, etc) would make your conclusion more relevant.

Arguments/Examples: You provided many different examples of flaws in the author's argument, which I liked. You called out the lack of statistics and also provided more qualitative reasons to doubt the author. Good job!

Suggestions for Improvement: Make sure that your intro restates the argument. Tie your conclusion to the essay prompt you're critiquing. I'd put this essay in the 4-5 range. Your examples were all good and there were few writing errors, so some practice with writing intros/conclusions should help you reach a top score.
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by cruzerkk » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:41 am
Hello Katharine,

Thank you so much for your inputs. Appreciated !
Will keep all the points in mind and work on them the next time i write an essay .

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by Katharine@GMATPrepNow » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:41 am
You're welcome! Let me know if you have any specific questions.
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by cruzerkk » Sun May 10, 2015 3:15 am
Can you kindly review this essay ?

Prompt :

"Motorcycle X has been manufactured in the United States for over 70 years. Although one foreign company has copied the motorcycle and is selling it for less, the company has failed to attract motorcycle X customers - some say because its products lacks the exceptionally loud noise made by motorcycle X. But there must be some other explanation. After all, foreign cars tend to be quieter than similar American-made cars, but they sell at least as well. Also, television advertisements for motorcycle X highlight its durability and sleek lines, not its noisiness and the ads typically have voice-overs or rock music rather than engine roar on the sound track."

The argument compares American made Motorcycle X with a foreign Motorcycle that has been modeled by copying Motorcycle X. In spite of being a copy, the duplicate model has not been able to attract the customers of Motorcycle X. The author tries to investigate the reason behind this. In doing so, he compares the sales of the Motorcycles to that of cars , which are 2 completely different entities. The author also brings to notice some information about how Motorcycle X has been advertised without providing any such information about the copied version. As there are a number of logical flaws which we will discuss in more detail, the argument is weak and insufficient.

The author seemingly degrades the claims made by some that the lack of noise in the engine of the copied version could be one of the factors influencing its inability to attract the customers of Motorcycle X. The author's explanation is not strong enough as he compares the difference in the noise levels of the Motorcycles to that of Cars. It is well known that Motorcyclists are generally more attracted to noisier motorcycles than silent ones. So comparing that with noise levels of Cars, whose owners on the other hand generally prefer more smooth and silent engines does not really serve the author well.

Some information is provided regarding the advertising strategies used by Motorcycle X, whereas no such information is provided about the copied model. This is a clear case of insufficient information. Without any knowledge about how the copied Motorcycle advertised themselves it would be unfair to compare the two. The author could have enlightened us with some information about how the copied motorcycle advertised themselves in order to better support his claim.

The author could have summarized his content in a much better way by providing some information about the difference in the cost of the motorcycles. He could have also thrown in some data as to how many customers who had purchased Motorcycle X did so after watching the advertisements.

Because the argument fails in making a more sensible comparison in the noise levels of the two motorcycles and also provides insufficient information with regards to the advertising strategies involved, we can conclude that it is weak and unsatisfactory.

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by Katharine@GMATPrepNow » Sun May 10, 2015 12:54 pm
Hello cruzerkk,

I'll review the version of this response that you posted in the forum.

-Katharine
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