GMAT Essays (AWA)

The US and European governments are not doing enough to help revive the sluggish world economy. The governments should start more stimulus programs and spend more money to revive the economy.

The economy has become a hot topic in the US of late and all over the world. There are those who argue that the governments should do more to improve the economy, and those who believe that governments should not meddle with the economy and stay away from it. The author here argues that governments should do more to improve the economy. Though his claim may well have merit, the author presents a poorly reasoned argument, based on questionable premises and assumptions. Based solely on the evidence the author offers, we cannot accept his arguments as valid.

The primary issue with the author is his unsubstantiated premises. The author's premises, the basis for his argument, lack any legitimate evidentiary support and render his conclusion unacceptable. The author mentions that the governments have not spent enough. The question becomes, how do we know when we have spent enough. The US government has spent trillions of dollars in the stimulus programs and so have the European governments. In the author's view, this expenditure is not enough to revive the economy. We cannot accept this as a legitimate premise without deep understanding of economics.

In addition, the author makes several assumptions that remain unproven. The author assumes that when governments allocate money to the various stimulus programs, the money will be allocated in an efficient way to get the maximum economic benefit. However, in majority of the cases, the money will be allocated to people with connections and to the groups who make the loudest noise. Such inefficient allocation of money fails to stimulate the economy. On the other hand, it results in wasteful expenditure and loss of productivity due to easy availability of money.

Furthermore, the governments do not have any money left in their coffers. Due to the sluggish economy, the tax collections are lower. This has forced the governments to borrow more and more money , causing huge budget deficits and increasing the debt level. This heightened debt level is detrimental to the credit rating and credibility of the governments. Hence, we can see that the efforts by the government do not help improve the economy, but they hurt the economy.

While the author does have several problems in his premises and assumptions, it is not to say that the entire argument is baseless. Though there are several issues with the author's argument, with additional research and clarification, he could improve his argument significantly.

In sum, the author's illogical argument depends on unsupported premises and unsubstantiated assumptions that render his conclusion invalid. If the author truly hopes to change the readers' mind on this issue, he would have to restructure his argument, fix the flaws in his logic, explicate his assumptions and provide evidentiary support. Without these, his poorly constructed argument will convince few people.

Test

Hi folks, I took the test last week and got 5.0 in AWA. I used the same style as I used here. I expected 5.5, but have to settle with 5.0. Perhaps I was too optimistic.

That's odd. I don't think the problem was with your style, which is well-organized and clear. You definitely could have gone into greater specifics about what type of evidence would either validate or falsify the claim made, though.