Issue Essay

[gmat740]

“People often complain that products are not made to last. They feel that making products that wear out fairly quickly wastes both natural and human resources. However, this approach is best for everyone—such manufacturing practices keep costs down for the consumer and stimulate demand.”
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

The issue that whether to make products made to last is a controversial one. This issue is becoming increasingly important in this age of consumerism. Many people feel that products should be made to last long. But these people overlook the positives aspects of such manufacturing practices. In this essay, I will support that such practices should continue.

The chief reason for my view is such manufacturing practices maintain a continuous cycle of supply and demand. If the products are made to last forever, after a certain period of time, there will no demand for the products consequently this will wipe out the entire manufacturing industry creating large scale unemployment. For instance, if an air-conditioned company produces A.C’s which last forever, after a certain period of time, the customers who have bought the A.C’s will not buy another A.C to replace the old one, as a result the demand will fall and company will have to shut down some of it’s manufacturing units.

Moreover, the changes in the trend in the use of products restricts the lifetime of a product. Take for example the mobile phones. Every year new features are added to the mobile phones. A customer, who bought a mobile phone five years back, would definitely change to a better handset with advanced features which were not available at five years ago. So making products to last long will simply restrict the customers to buy new products with improved features and thus hamper the creativity of the manufacturing industry.

However, many people argue that making products to last long will definitely save lots of natural and human resources. Although they are correct but we have to consider a trade off between the positive and negative sides of manufacturing products to last long.

Many of these issues can never be resolved to everybody’s satisfaction, but in the long run I feel that manufacturing products for a short duration will definitely be a key to maintaining supply and demand cycle and providing numerous employment opportunities to people.

[myohmy]

I would give you a 4.5. Here's the kicker - your essay could be a 6. It is SO close to being a 6. Your grammar and spelling are okay (leave some time for proofreading), you use complex sentences, good transitions, good points, all of that. It is just missing the thing that AWA readers need - specific real world examples. Your examples are good, but they're too general. You talk about mobile phones -- couldn't you just as easily write about Motorola or Verizon?

In other words, your examples are just too broad. The more specific you get with them, the better, and more specific examples would easily catapult you into 6 territory.

The other small issue is your thesis is oddly phrased. It would be better put if you made a strong statement "Business practices that create regular new products are essential to a well-functioning economy."

[gmat740]

I would give you a 4.5. Here's the kicker - your essay could be a 6. It is SO close to being a 6. Your grammar and spelling are okay (leave some time for proofreading), you use complex sentences, good transitions, good points, all of that. It is just missing the thing that AWA readers need - specific real world examples. Your examples are good, but they're too general. You talk about mobile phones -- couldn't you just as easily write about Motorola or Verizon?

In other words, your examples are just too broad. The more specific you get with them, the better, and more specific examples would easily catapult you into 6 territory.

The other small issue is your thesis is oddly phrased. It would be better put if you made a strong statement "Business practices that create regular new products are essential to a well-functioning economy."

Thanks a lot for taking out time to rate my essya.

I will definitely keep in mind the points you mentioned