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some line-by-line comments follow.

SIGNIFICANT OMISSION:
the argument is fundamentally predicated upon a presumed 'danger that [the sculptures] would be stolen' - but the argument presents no evidence that such a danger exists in the first place.
you should include the following criticism: the argument needs to furnish evidence that such a danger exists in the first place, and, moreover, that it is immediate enough to warrant the installation of any type of security service in the first place.
a couple of considerations that you could raise in this regard:
* these are garden sculptures. are they HUGE? could they conceivably be stolen without the assistance of heavy equipment and/or other extreme measures?
* have thefts of similar items occurred elsewhere?
* etc.

* don't use the first person; doing so serves only to weaken the force of your argument.
the use of the first person is demanded in polite conversation - we're less likely to step on others' proverbial toes if we preface our statements with 'i think'/'i believe'/etc. rather than simply making declarations - but not in writing. when you write an essay, especially an essay dedicated to shredding the credibility of an argument, you should never moderate your statements with first-person pleasantries.

* you should learn to write introductions with a clearly articulated thesis that appears either directly at the beginning or directly at the end of the introductory paragraph. this is the 'grocery list effect': we tend to remember, and to be more affected by, items appearing at the beginning and at the end of things.
your thesis statement - Hence I do not find the above argument persuasive. - is buried in the middle of your introduction, almost as if you're trying to sneak it past the reader without being detected! (worse yet, it's stated in the first person, in contravention of the principle above)


don't repeat catch phrases, such as 'cost-benefit analysis', verbatim. if you've already said that you're going to do a cost-benefit analysis, either (1) paraphrase heavily, or
(2) just do the analysis.
(2) is better.

also, note the TREMENDOUS effect of killing the first person here:
i would like to start by doing a cost-benefit analysis --> response: ok, go ahead, but why should we listen to your analysis? are you some sort of expert?
a cost-benefit analysis is needed --> response: this is a strong point.

ok, not bad. you get points for the specificity of some of the suggestions you're making here - these are good, solid ideas.

* this paragraph is starting to turn into a total free-for-all in terms of pronouns. you started with the first person; then you went into the third person (it is necessary to...); then you went to 'one' in the following sentence.
be consistent.


this isn't a question, so, don't puncuate it as if it were.

DO NOT write words like 'maybe' (which is one word, btw). the message of such words is, basically, that you don't believe a word of what you're writing.
do not be afraid to make declarations about what should and should not be done.
try to write in such a way that, if you were to speak in the same way, would cause you to be regarded as a self-important, pompous know-it-all. remember, this is not spoken language.

also, make sure your statements are accurate: this is not 'apart from' a cost-benefit analysis. since you're analyzing the costs of the different security options, this consideration is PART of a cost-benefit analysis.

if you ever find yourself using 'this' as a pronoun, you can most likely combine the sentence containing 'this' with the preceding sentence.
here:
additionally, the museum should consider the costs and benefits of alternative forms of security, such as live guard services, which could prove to be a better investment than video surveillance.

this is pushing it a bit, but, if you can't think of anything else, i suppose it's at least within the scope of the argument.

you must capitalize 'twelve'.
'could be' should be 'can be', unless they can't be trained anymore.

Once again, without considering these alternatives one can not reach a decision whether to install a comprehensive surveillance system.

mechanical issues here:
* watch it with the 1st person
* who's 'we'?
* 'versus' is inappropriate as used here; you can just say 'and'
* 'which' must refer to the immediately preceding noun, which happens to be 'benefit'. thus you are inadvertently saying that the benefit includes the cost of system maintenance.

semantic issues:
* don't say 'improving' security; the passage doesn't give any reason to believe that there is currently any security in place.
* what is 'the garden museum'? this sounds as though you're talking about another museum altogether.


wordy!

overall, i'd say 3.

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here is some feedback.

the biggest problem with this essay is in its organization. you have a couple of sentences that seem to be wrongly placed, and there are also plenty of points on which you should have included more details.

--

"well off" is an idiomatic expression meaning "affluent" or "wealthy". you don't want to use that.
instead, you should just say exactly what you mean, such as "the argument is illogical"; "the argument commits several logical fallacies"; "the logic in the argument is invalid"; etc.

i don't understand how this sentence is related either (a) to the other sentences in this paragraph or (b) to your essay as a whole.

also, did you mean to write the "if" in the second sentence? that sentence makes sense if you omit the "if", but not if it's there.

this is good.

you could have written more, though.

you should EXPLICITLY WRITE that film processing is completely different from food processing ("false analogy", as written in the excellent post above with all the boldface headings), and that the analogy is at best questionable and at worst useless or misleading.


this is a good start.

you can CONNECT this to the above point about the bad analogy: you could point out that these technologies and processes will differ COMPLETELY from film processing to food processing, a consideration that is fatal to the analogy.

YES.

you should definitely elaborate on this point!

specifically:
THE 25 YEARS IS ALREADY OVER.

the company should already have some drastic cost cuts to SHOW after this much time.

the structure of the argument is "we should be able to cut costs". that may be appropriate if we're about to begin a 25-year period, but it doesn't make any sense to be still making predictions after those 25 years have actually passed.

as you have stated, we should have some hard numbers to show after that much time.

yes.

_________________
Ron is a Director of Curriculum Development at Manhattan GMAT. He has been teaching various standardized tests for almost 20 years.

He wears white after Labor Day, gets 55% of his calories from protein, and takes standardized tests for fun.

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there's also a major fallacy of equivocation here.

in the film-processing statistic cited, "cost cuts" is used to refer to the GRADUAL DROP in costs over 25 years.

regarding olympic foods itself, "cost cuts" doesn't seem to mean this, since the article is talking about the company's ability to do this in the present. instead, at this point, "cost cuts" now means running current operations most efficiently, a theme that has nothing to do with the gradual cost decreases seen in the film example.

_________________
Ron is a Director of Curriculum Development at Manhattan GMAT. He has been teaching various standardized tests for almost 20 years.

He wears white after Labor Day, gets 55% of his calories from protein, and takes standardized tests for fun.

Pueden hacerle preguntas a Ron o en inglés o en español.

If you send Ron a private message, please allow 1-2 weeks for a response.

Learn more about ron