GMAT Essays (AWA)

The following appeared in an editorial from a magazine produced by an organization dedicated to environmental protection:

“In order to effectively reduce the amount of environmental damage that industrial manufacturing plants cause, those who manage the plants must be aware of the specific amount and types of damage caused by each of their various manufacturing processes. However, few corporations have enough financial incentive to monitor this information. In order to guarantee that corporations reduce the damage caused by their plants, the federal government should require every corporation to produce detailed annual reports on the environmental impact of their manufacturing process, and the government should impose stiff financial penalties for failure to produce these reports.”

The author concludes that the best solution of environmental damage caused by industrial manufacturing plants is to require every company to produce the detailed annual reports on the environmental effect of their manufacturing process. To substantiate this conclusion, the author points out that the awareness of the environmental issue would urge the companies to solve the problem, but many companies do not have enough funds to observe the environmental impact. Therefore, the annual report is the best solution. This argument, however, fails to be persuasive for the author's questionable assumptions and logical error.

Most conspicuously, the author's line of reasoning is entirely based on the fallacy that few corporations that unsuccessfully inspect and observe the specific amount and types of damage in the first place have potential to produce detailed annual reports per the government's compulsory. Actually, this is a dubious claim. Presumably, those companies earn extremely low profits, and thus cannot respond to the new practice of annual report. They would be inevitably punished by the stiff fine, and suffer even lower profitability. Since the root cause of problem still exists, the financial penalties would aggravate the situation into the endless cycle. If this is the case, then the expectation of reduced pollution amount is unfounded.

Also, the author foresees the success of the plan on the flawed assumption that recognizing the environmental impacts would lead to the corporations' further actions to untangle the problem. Nevertheless, this statement is not necessarily valid. Even if the companies perceive the consequences from pollution emitted from their manufacturing plants, they perhaps abandon them all. The necessary improvement to reduce the amount of pollution may require the companies to install new machines, to educate and train their workers, and to reorganize the garbage system. The companies may not agree to do so because they have to spend large amount of money. Again, the government cannot solve the issues without the companies' cooperation.

Finally, even if every company produces the annual reports as the government's requirement, the author fails to address the validity of those detailed annual reports. If the faith on the integrity of those reports is accurate, then such compulsory would be effective. On the contrary, if the companies produce incorrect and fake data, then these reports would not be very helpful.

In summary, this argument is unwarranted. To strengthen the argument, the author would have to provide additional corroborate that the corporations that do not have adequate incentive to monitor the environmental damage of their plants have enough resources to produce the suggested annual reports to the government. Moreover, the author has to prove that the awareness of environmental issue would certainly bring about the cooperation of every corporation to solve the problem. Most importantly, the more information about the process of checking the annual reports should also be given. Without such evidences mentioned above, this argument remains logically unconvincing, and fails to persuader the readers.

a 5..