GMAT Essays (AWA)

ESSAY QUESTION:

The following appeared in a trade publication for the insurance industry:

"Each generation of Americans has lived longer than the ones preceding it, as the national life expectancy has approached 80 years old in recent years. The progress of medical technology shows no sign of abating. Therefore, we can confidently predict that most children born in America in the next decade will live past the age of ninety."

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.

RESPONSE:

The argument appeared in trade publication says that since each generation of Americans has lived longer than the ones preceding it, as the national life expectancy has approached 80 years old in recent years. The progress of medical technology shows no sign of abating. Therefore, it can be confidently predicted that most children born in America in the next decade will live past the age of ninety. But the argument is based on improper assumptions which are discussed below.

There is no guarantee of life on earth. And there is no reason to assume that whatever happened in the past will continue further in the future. Even if each generation lived longer than the generation before it, the national life expectancy has approached 80 years only in all these years. Even with less medication facilities there are so many people who lived more than 100 or so in old times with their life style and quality of life.

And the writer opines that progress of medical technology shows no sign of becoming weak. Even if the technology progresses without looking back there are so many medical cases of serious ailments in developed country America itself. Ever since the beginning of the medical history we have been progressing in the technology but nevertheless so many times people are struck by deadly diseases like plague, cholera, cancer and AIDS. So even medical technology can help treat and prevent few diseases affecting mankind still it would be extreme to conclude that progress of medical technology will help increase the life expectancy.

With the current life style containing stress, ambitious nature of citizens, multitasking to catch the speed of generation, increasing usage of iPad, laptops and other devices, fast food culture and other reasons that follow the life can decrease rather than increase as expected by the author. There are no proper evidences submitted by the author to support his argument.

Most children born in America may or not live past the age of ninety. While the possibility cannot be denied we cannot conclude the same based on progress of medical technology or simply because each generation of Americans has lived longer than the ones preceding it as per above discussions. The argument as is without being supported by additional documents is highly unacceptable and improper to make.

While there are some interesting ideas discussed and some good points made in this essay, I give it a maximum of 4 for the following reasons.

The sentence construction could be much better. For instance, this sentence "The argument appeared in trade publication says that since each generation of Americans has lived longer than the ones preceding it, as the national life expectancy has approached 80 years old in recent years." contains no verb to go with the subject and therefore no independent clause. If the word "as" were removed, then it would work. As it stands the essay starts with a weak sentence that does not really make sense, and there are more instances of weak or illogical sentence construction.

While there are good ideas to be found in this essay, the construction of the essay and the arrangement of the ideas could be more connected and organized so that it all works together better. For instance the second paragraph starts with a good idea, but then just lists a few more ideas without connecting all of them to each other. Then the third paragraph is more connected, but still not all that well organized or coherent.

The fourth paragraph starts with a good idea, but then, rather than developing or supporting that idea merely says that there is no evidence to support the author's argument.

The sentences in the conclusion do work together and this may be the best paragraph in the essay. At the same time I wish that even here there was more depth or something to really support what is being said instead of a simple "The argument is unacceptable to make." and once again the last sentence does not contain a clear verb to go with the subject and therefore does not contain an independent clause. This could be fixed with the addition of the word "is" between "documents" and "highly".

So while this essay contains some good ideas and good points, as a whole it is not that well constructed at the sentence level, the paragraph level or the entire essay level. Going forward you could seek to connect and organize your thoughts more. You could develop paragraphs better and more logically support what you are saying. The beginnings of a good essay are here. Now you could take things further in a few ways and step up the quality.