GMAT Essays (AWA)

Hi,

The following is the first topic from OG 12:

The following appeared as part of an annual report sent to stockholders by Olympic Foods, a processor of frozen fruits:

"Over time, the costs of processing go down because as organizations learn how to do things better, they become more efficient. In color film processing, for example, the cost of a 3-by-5-inch print fell from 50 cents for five-day service in 1970 to 20 cents for one-day service in 1984. The same principle applies to the processing of food. And since Olympic Foods will soon celebrate its 25th birthday, we can expect that our long experience will enable us to minimize costs and thus make profits"


I have been trying to work on the essays using myohmy's Analysis of an Argument template available on the forum. I need the expert's help in validating if my line of thought is correct or not or if I have missed some major points.

I am not writing the full analysis but just a gist (in line with myohmys template):

Premises:
1) Cost of processing goes down as organizations learn to be more efficient with time.
2) The same principle applies to processing of food as it does to color film processing

Conclusion:
As Olympic foods, a company into processing of foods (frozen foods to be precise) celebrates its 25th birthday, it expects to minimize costs and hence increase profits

I) Para 1: Introduction

II) Para 2: Attack the premises for lack of evidence

The author provides evidence for the first premise by citing the example of the color processing industry. However, he/she does not conclusively link the reduction in cost to the increase in efficiency of the color film processing units. Should this be attacked as lack of evidence or lack of explication of assumptions?

The second premise does not provide any evidence on how processing of food is same as processing of color films

Based on the information given, does the following from myohmy's template fit in this particular case"

"The primary issue with the authors argument is his unsubstantiated premises..."

Because evidentiary support is provided (example of color film processing), can we call this as the primary issue?

III) Para 3: Attack unproven assumptions

The author assumes that the reduction in cost in the color film processing is due to increased efficiency attained through experience over time. There could be alternate explanations for the same such as improvements in technology for color film processing

The author also assumes that because Olympic foods is celebrating its 25th birthday, expected to reduce costs: is this correct? My take is that because this conclusion is driven out of a premise which states "More experience = Reduction in cost", we cannot consider this as a misplaced assumption. Could someone comment on this?

Any other assumptions that I might be missing here? If this needs to be treated as a lack of evidence in premise rather than an unproven assumption that which other assumption could have been attacked here?

IV) Para 4: Show areas where improvements could be made in the argument

I usually approach this as a reverse engineering exercise where I would try and close all the gaps that I have raised in the previous paras:

1) The author should provide evidence on how processing of color films and food items is similar
2) The author should conclusively link the reduction in cost in the color film processing to experience gained over time
3) The author should try and eliminate alternate explanations for the reduction in cost

V) Para 5: Conclusion


Any help on this would be much appreciated. I am basically looking for validation of my line of thinking and / or pointers to obvious things that I might have overlooked.

Cheers!

I think that you've basically addressed the big flaws with the argument. The organizational template that you're following wouldn't be my personal choice, but there's more than one way to write a high-scoring essay, so if this is the approach that you prefer, I think you've done a fine job of identifying the issues that need to be discussed. Without actually seeing an essay, it's tough to gauge how your structure would hold up to scoring.