GMAT Essays (AWA)

Hello,

wrote my essay about topic #3.

Some details about my essay:

Words: 545
Time in total: 41 min
non-native English speaker


Thanks in advance for reviewing!


The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city's council on the arts:
"In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our city's art museums has increased by a similar percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television, where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened with severe cuts, we can expect that attendance at our city's art museums will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city's funds for supporting the arts should be reallocated to public television."

Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.


In our today's society, social classes are changing. While hard work steps into the background, culture and art are getting more and more attention from the majority of people in the western countries.

In the preceeding statement, the author claims that reallocating funds in favor of the city's art museums would prevent the numbers of the museum's visitors from declining.
Though this claim may well have merit, the author presents a poorly reasoned argument, based on several questionable premises and assumptions, and based solely on the evidence the author offers, his argument that the numbers of visitors can be maintained at a particular level or even be raised by reallocating resources cannot be accepted as valid.

The primary issue with the author's reasoning lies in his unsubstantiated premises.
He states that a conducted poll reveals an increase of 15% of residents watching a TV program related to visual art than in the same poll conducted five years ago and that, during the same time, the number of art museum visitors in the same city increased by a similar amount.
While this might be true, it could have several reasons. For instance, the TV program could have changed and there are more reports on visual arts broadcasted than five years ago. The population in the city could have changed as well from more conservative people to an open, art admiring society. A change in demography could also be a crucial point.
The author's premises, the basis of his argument, lack any legitimate evidentiary support and render his conclusion unacceptable.

In addition, the author makes assumpotions and failing to provide explication of the links between the reallocation of funds and an increasing number of visitors to art museums.
There is no evidence that allocating more resources and more money to the art museums would give an incentive to visit the museums. The money could be spent for security personal or just increasing safety meassures of the building.
Furthermore the author infers that the audience of visual art programs is directly connected to visitors of art musuems. While public TV could broadcast reports on classical art of a particular epoch, the museums could present permanent exhibitions of modern street art and graffity or vice versa. There is not necessarily a connection.

While the author has included various drawbacks into his argument's premises and assumptions, that is not to say that his entire argument is without base.
He could strengthen his argument by pointing out what the TV programs and the exhibitions of the museums consist of and what the reallocated money would be spent for.
Though there are several issues with the author's reasoning at present, with research and clarification, he could improve his argument significantly.

In sum, the auhtor's illogical argument is based on unsupported premises and unsubstantiated assumptions that render his conclusion invalid.
As art lovers can tell, art is a vast term and requires proper definition. Otherwise statements can be rather washy and preposterous like the author's conclusion.
If the author truly hopes to change his reader's minds in the issue, he would have to largely restructure his argument, fix the flaws in his logic, clearly explicate his assumptions, and provide evidentiary support. Without these things, his poorly reasoned argument will likely convince few people.