GMAT Essays (AWA)

ARGUMENT:
The following appeared as part of a recommendation from the business manager of a department store: "Local clothing stores reported that their profits decreased, on average, for the three-month period between August 1 and October 31. Stores that sell products for the home reported that, on average, their profits increased during this same period. Clearly, consumers are choosing to buy products for their homes instead of clothing. To take advantage of this trend, we should reduce the size of our clothing departments and enlarge our home furnishings and household products departments." Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.


ANALYSIS:
The argument above states that the profit of local clothing store decreased during a span of 3 months and that the profit of home products stores increased during the same tenure. Hence, the store should reduce the size of clothing department and increase the size of the home products department to cope up with the trend. Though the argument above may well have merit, the author provides an unreasoned claim, based on several questionable premises and assumptions, and based solely on evidences provided, we cannot claim the argument as valid.

The primary issue with the reasoning lies in the unsubstantiated premises. The author states that the data is collected only over a span of 3 months, i.e. is from Aug 1 to Oct 31. With the information of just 3 months, we cannot claim that this trend will continue in the future. Making a conclusion based on such information will be a decision which may not hold true in future. The author's premise, the basis for his conclusion lack legitimate explication and render to a conclusion without base.

In addition, the author makes several assumptions and fails to provide reasoning for the same. The author makes a baseless assumption that the increase in the profits of home products is the reason for the decrease in profits of clothing and hence the trend will follow the same. The reason for the decrease in profits on clothing store could be because the quality of products in the clothing store is not upto the customer's expectation and could be many other reasons as well. The author weakens the argument by making assumptions and failing to proving link between and X and Y which he assumes to be true.

While the argument have serious flaws in the premises and assumptions, that is not to say that the claim is completely without base. The author could have provided more insights about the trend for past few years and more information about how changing the size of department will lead to increase in profits of the company. Though the argument has several flaws at present, with more research and clarification the author can improve the claim.

In sum, the author's illogical argument in based on unreasoned premises and unsubstantiated reasons. If the author wishes to change the minds of readers about this issue, he should majorly restructure the argument, correct the flaws in premises, and explicate the assumptions. Without doing the same, the argument may get the minds of only few readers.

Requesting to share some light here. @VivianKerr, @DavidG@VeritasPrep, @[email protected]