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Andrey Popov
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2011 7:44 am
- Location: Novosibirsk, Russia
- GMAT Score:710
Hello, everyone!
I started to prepare for GMAT exam several months ago, but only now I'm starting to prepare for AWA part.
Could you please rate my "Analysis of an Argument" essay and give me feedback about my serious mistakes.
Task:
The following appeared in a memorandum written by the assistant manager of a store that sells gourmet food items from various countries:
"A local wine store made an interesting discovery last month: it sold more French than Italian wine on days when it played recordings of French accordion music, but it sold more Italian than French wine on days when Italian songs were played. Therefore, I recommend that we put food specialties from one particular country on sale for a week at a time and play only music from that country while the sale is going on. By this means we will increase our profits in the same way that the wine store did, and we will be able to predict more precisely what items we should stock at any given time."
Discuss how well reasoned ... etc.
Essay:
The author claimed that playing music from particular country and putting food specialties from that will help to increase sales of food produced in the country. Although the argument is very attractive to believe, it is seriously flawed and has lack of evidence for support author's recommendations for managers.
First of all, the author speak about sales of wines in wine store. He provided us information, that French wines are sold better, than Italian due to play of French music and vise versa. But author doesn't provided us more detailed analysis. If it is big wine store, it may have more than two producers of wines (e.g. Spain, Greece and others) and we haven't information about such sales. It is possible that Spain wines were sold better than French in spite of French music playing and it fully destroys idea of the argument. Author also didn't provide us information about quality and types of wines. The wine store might sell the best french wine with huge period of saving and poor italian wine with small keeping period. This fact undermines author's main idea and makes conclusion unsupported.
Secondly, the author didn't give any facts for consideration of music influence on the sales of gourmet food. There is no reasonable basis for believe that behaviour of food buyers is similar to that of wine buyers.Moreover, the decision to sale food from only one particular country during each day may have negative impact on overall sales: customers that want to buy food from another country, not from only one will go to rivals. It will lead to decrease in profit.
Nevertheless, the argument of the author may be strenghthened to provide se
rious support for main conclusion. The author need to give more facts and more detailed analysis of wine sales, compare identical items while concerning influence of music. It is necessary to compare wine customers with consumers of gourment food, e.g. information about their similar habits will be important evidence to support athor's conclusion.
In sum, it can be concluded that argument is logically flawed, concerns several unstraight ideas and suffers from lack of evidence. If the author want to make information in memorandum more precise and argumented, he need to provide additional analysis, evidential facts to build his conclusion on a reasonable basis.
I started to prepare for GMAT exam several months ago, but only now I'm starting to prepare for AWA part.
Could you please rate my "Analysis of an Argument" essay and give me feedback about my serious mistakes.
Task:
The following appeared in a memorandum written by the assistant manager of a store that sells gourmet food items from various countries:
"A local wine store made an interesting discovery last month: it sold more French than Italian wine on days when it played recordings of French accordion music, but it sold more Italian than French wine on days when Italian songs were played. Therefore, I recommend that we put food specialties from one particular country on sale for a week at a time and play only music from that country while the sale is going on. By this means we will increase our profits in the same way that the wine store did, and we will be able to predict more precisely what items we should stock at any given time."
Discuss how well reasoned ... etc.
Essay:
The author claimed that playing music from particular country and putting food specialties from that will help to increase sales of food produced in the country. Although the argument is very attractive to believe, it is seriously flawed and has lack of evidence for support author's recommendations for managers.
First of all, the author speak about sales of wines in wine store. He provided us information, that French wines are sold better, than Italian due to play of French music and vise versa. But author doesn't provided us more detailed analysis. If it is big wine store, it may have more than two producers of wines (e.g. Spain, Greece and others) and we haven't information about such sales. It is possible that Spain wines were sold better than French in spite of French music playing and it fully destroys idea of the argument. Author also didn't provide us information about quality and types of wines. The wine store might sell the best french wine with huge period of saving and poor italian wine with small keeping period. This fact undermines author's main idea and makes conclusion unsupported.
Secondly, the author didn't give any facts for consideration of music influence on the sales of gourmet food. There is no reasonable basis for believe that behaviour of food buyers is similar to that of wine buyers.Moreover, the decision to sale food from only one particular country during each day may have negative impact on overall sales: customers that want to buy food from another country, not from only one will go to rivals. It will lead to decrease in profit.
Nevertheless, the argument of the author may be strenghthened to provide se
rious support for main conclusion. The author need to give more facts and more detailed analysis of wine sales, compare identical items while concerning influence of music. It is necessary to compare wine customers with consumers of gourment food, e.g. information about their similar habits will be important evidence to support athor's conclusion.
In sum, it can be concluded that argument is logically flawed, concerns several unstraight ideas and suffers from lack of evidence. If the author want to make information in memorandum more precise and argumented, he need to provide additional analysis, evidential facts to build his conclusion on a reasonable basis.
