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Please rate and review my AWA essay from the free Veritas Prep CAT test - I´d be happy to review yours in exchange!
Candidate: Our city's students have suffered long enough. Over the mayor's four years in office, our district's math and science scores have hovered well below the national average, even while our average teacher's salary has increased. Our student-per-class ratio is laughable, yet he has made no progress on building a new school. He simply cannot be trusted with our children's future; if you care about education, I am the only candidate you can support.
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.


My essay:
]In the argument, the author argues against the current mayor of the school district in order to convince his audience to vote for himself as the new school district mayor. The author´s line of argumentation is flawed since it fails to provide any evidence explaining why the information given shows that the current mayor does not adequately manage the schools in the district. Moreover, the author does not argue in favor of himself and thereby does not give any reasons to believe that the student´s situation will improve if he or she becomes the new mayor.
First, it is not illustrated how the student´s low math and science scores are actually caused by the current mayor´s policies. The mayor is supposed to be the main source of this problem, although it is not explained why.
Second, it is by no means clear how the increase of teachers´ salaries contradicts the low student scores. The author creates the impression that, while teachers´ salaries increased, students´ scores should have increased as well. This cause-and-effect relationship seems untrue and is not proven by any evidence or information in the argument.
Furthermore, the author is very vague in stating that the student-per-class ration is "laughable". While the style of language seems rather informal and overly judging, it is also not stated why the ratio is actually bad. Nor is any information given what a good or better ratio would look like. Again, at this point, the argument lacks further information proving the author´s statement.
Lastly, the author blames the current mayor for not building a new school. However, he does not explain how a new school would actually improve the class ratio. What if a new school causes many new students to enroll in the school district, which might cause the class ration to even worsen? Building a new school as a desirable solution is an assumption that the author incorrectly relies on.
In general, this argument can be strongly improved by giving evidence or further information that explain the cause-and-effect relationships suggested by the author. Overall, however, the authors line of argumentation would be even stronger if he or she actually argued in favor of him or herself, not only against the current mayor running office.