GMAT Essays (AWA)

Will in future post all my essays on https://diveintogmat.blocked

ESSAY QUESTION:
The following appeared in the personal finance section of a popular magazine:

"The average price of an acre of land in the United States is now 50 times what it was in 1970, and nearly 200 times what it was in 1920. The nation's population is projected to keep increasing, even as the amount of land remains constant. Therefore, people who are approaching retirement should invest heavily in real estate in order to ensure their financial security."

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.

YOUR RESPONSE:
The article in the magazine relates the effect of population increase on the availability and price of land to the financial security of retiring people, and draws the conclusion that only if retiring people invest in real estate can they be financially secure. The facts presented in the article are inadequate to draw the conclusion drawn from them, because the argument fails to take into consideration several other equally important factors that could influence financial security of individuals, whether they are retiring or not. Also, the argument assumes that there are no other forms of investment that could be more profitable than real estate, which makes it untenable.

The market value of a resource can be linked to both its availability and the demand for it. When the availability of the resource becomes scarce, if the demand for it is very high, then the market value can increase in a non-linear manner. However, there are threshold points that scarcity and demand have to surpass, in order for the increase in market value to materialise. Considering that the facts mentioned do not state anything about the availabilities of real estate in the United States, and the level of demand for it in the country, it may be short-sighted to draw a conclusion that real estate may become so scarce and demand so high that it would become a very valuable investment in the future.

The argument states that the population of the United States is projected to keep increasing. It does not, however, mention the relative projected rate of increase of population vis-a-vis the rates for the previous years. Therefore, even assuming that the price of land would continue to increase unaffected by any other economic driver, it may not continue to increase at the same rapid rate as in previous decades, if the population growth rate and therefore the demand for land does not grow at a higher rate than before.

In essence, the argument fails to start with an adequate set of premises to which appropriate reasoning may be applied in order to answer the question of how people approaching retirement may be able to increase their financial security. It also does not consider other options they may have, such as investment in shares in businesses. Correlating population increase to increase in land prices may have statistical evidence, but causal effect and outcomes of the two dimensions and their combined effect on another dimension that is financial security, cannot be predicted with confidence.

Thanks for sharing this essay.

It's a 6, but a tenuous one.

You earn the perfect score because of the power of your prose and salience of the argument. Good stuff.

For future reference I would advise writing 5 paragraphs (i.e., in your case, a 3rd body paragraph). Also stay away from what I call "meta-arguments," i.e. talking about aspects of the argument too much. I.e. " the argument fails to start with an adequate set of premises to which appropriate reasoning may be applied in order to answer the question" -- this is kinda like the rapper in the Chappelle Show skit who never starts rapping and just keeps on telling the audience that his headphones don't work and that the bass is too heavy, etc.

But I digress. You earn a 6.

Cheers,
[email protected]

Hi Josh,

Heartening to get one reply and with good feedback. I am finding it quite hard to write all I want to write in the essays within a span of 30 min on the practice tests, inspite of being a fast typist. Hope to improve in the next 2 weeks that I have before the test.

thank you again. really.

Dino