GMAT Essays (AWA)

Please help me out here. My focus, based on my initial feedback, has been to lengthen the text by giving more reasons and structuring a little bit better (more robotic) the essays.

Any advice, no matter how broad it is will be greatly appreciated. Of the two, which essay is better? why?

Best,
joe


Essay 1:

The following appeared in a memorandum from the business department of the Apogee Company:

"When the Apogee Company had all its operations in one location, it was more profitable than it is today. Therefore, the Apogee Company should close down its field offices and conduct all its operations from a single location. Such centralization would improve profitability by cutting costs and helping the company maintains better supervision of all employees."

The following argument is flawed for the following reasons. Primarily, the argument states that because Apogee was more profitable when all of it operations were centralized, so if the company centralizes its operations again it will be more profitable. However, this statement is based on the assumption that things don't change.

First, the argument fails to take into consideration the evolution of the company. For example, at the beginning, Apogee might have been more profitable than it is today because it was a small start-up with lower overhead costs. In addition, the company migth be currently going through a transition period were it is expanding its operations which, in the long run, will result in greater profitability.

Second, the statement doesn't take into account a changing market enviornment. Since Apogee started doing business many new companies could have started to compete with it. Therefore, Apogee might have been forced to lower its prices to discourage new entrants and keep its existing customers. In turn, this could had lowered its profitabilty.

Third, it is not necessarily true that centralization always leads to lower costs. In fact, if Apogee is a big, international company centralizing all of it operation might lead to higher operating and production costs. If all of its operations are in one area, Apogee might need to incur in travel expenses for its personnel and higher shipping costs for its products. Furthemore, the company will not be able to benefit from offshoring.

Because the argument made several unwarranted assumptions and fails to provide any additional information on the context of Apogee and its current situation the argument is weak. This argument could be considerably stronger if it provides more information on why Apogee desentralized its operations and how much time has past.


Essay 2


The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city's council on the arts:

"In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our city's art museums has increased by a similar percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television, where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened with severe cuts, we can expect that attendance at our city's art museums will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city's funds for supporting the arts should be reallocated to public television."

The following argument is flawed for numerous reasons. Primarily, tha argument states that the increase in the attendance to the city's museums over the past five years is related to the fact that more of its citizens are waching visual art shows in the television. Consequently, the city council wants to reallocate funds to support the television.

First, the memorandum states that the increase people waching visual arts shows in television explains the increase in the attendance to the museums. However, this fails to consider other explanations. For example, the increase to the citys museums and change in peoples television behaviours can be explaniend by a suddent increase in the interest in visual arts. Also, the opposite causality might be true were the increase in people waching art television shows is motivated by what they saw in the museums.

Second, the reallocation of funds away from the museums to support the television could have unintended consequences. It might be the case that the drop in funding to support new exhibitions and to maintain the existing installations could actually cause people to stop visitng the museums. If the citys museums stop offering new attractions or lower their quality they might fail to attract new visitors or to retain existing ones. Moreover, the decrease in corporate funding to support public television might actually benefit museums as they will stand as one of the few alternatives for the citizens interested in visual arts to explore their passion and educate.

Third, the argument is based on a citywide poll of its residents television habits which fails to account for all the people who goes to the museum. In this case, the increase in attendance to the museum could be explained by tourists or other people who do not wacht television. Had the argument provided with more information on who is visiting the citys museums and why could had help to strengthen it.

Because the argument made several unwarranted assumptions and fails to provide additional evidence to support the relation between the citizens television ahabits and the museums attendance.