GMAT Essays (AWA)

The following appeared in a newspaper editorial during the holiday shopping season:

"Americans spend far too much of their time buying and consuming non-essential goods. Studies show that, on average Americans spend over a quarter of their leisure time shopping. As such, it is no secret why America is losing its competitive edge relative to other countries. Instead of spending their time productively, Americans are wasting time through frivolous consumption. In order to counteract this trend, Americans should spend more time focused on personal and communal development--by, for example, pursuing educational advancement or participating in volunteer opportunities."

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.

YOUR RESPONSE:
The Speaker asserts that Americans spend too much of their time on shopping of non-essential goods and links this trend to America's losing its competitive edge relative to other countries. The Speaker then provides a specific solution to this trend by suggesting that Americans spend more time on personal and communal development rather than excessive shopping. Although the premises provided by the speaker have some merit, the reasoning provided by the author is not strongly founded for a couple of reasons as there are two things happening at the same time, and the author seems to have assumed or co-related one event to the be the cause of another. Also, no specific data points are elicited to show the numbers of the American population inclined towards this particular trend.

The speaker's claim that average Americans spend over a quarter of their leisure time shopping is loosely based on a study that does actually elucidate the size of the population that is being considered for the study. This specific flaw leaves a gaping error of interpretation as the size of the population being studied could be a few hundreds or a few thousands. As such, this cannot represent the actual scenario that the speaker claims to represent. The speaker could have strengthened his assertion by actually indicating the total size and the number of Americans spending their leisure time shopping of this total size.

Two events are occurring at the same time. One being the excessive consumption of non-essential goods by Americans and the other being America losing its competitive advantage in the global picture. The speaker has wrongly co-related these two separate events as a cause-effect relationship. The speaker has not indicated as to how this trend is actually affecting America's competitive edge. Also, the speaker's method of measuring productivity is unclear. The speaker's suggestion to spend more time on personal development is not backed by strong premises. For one, America could be losing its competitive edge because of several other factors. The economies of the other countries could be developing at a faster rate than America or the American economy by itself could have affected due to an economic slowdown, political instability and other related factors. The speaker could have given specific examples as to why America is losing its competitive edge to strengthen his assertion.

Thus, to strengthen the speaker's claim, he can provide specific data points with respect to the study in hand and also could have provided alternate reasons for America's loss of competitive edge. Based on the additional evidence, the speaker could have strengthened his conclusion by eliminating errors of co-relation reasoning.

Brent@GMATPrepNow wrote:Your writing is strong, but I think you spent too much time summarizing the argument in the first paragraph. While I think that it's good to do some summarizing, I would just simplify the conclusion. You can go into greater detail in the body of your essay.

I see a lot of students questioning statistical data in their essays, and this can sometimes be a good idea. For example, if an argument makes a global conclusion based on a small, clearly-stated sample, then you might want to write about how the sample may not be representative of the entire population.

In this argument, we are told that more than one study has shown that, on average Americans spend over a quarter of their leisure time shopping. This information is pretty much given as fact. There's nothing to suggest that there may be an inherent flaw in the statistics. Sure, all of these studies may have been flawed, but there's nothing to suggest this.

The main flaws here are the implied causation (shopping causes loss of competitive edge, and personal development will help regain competitive edge). Focus on these.

Aside: When submitting essays, stick with the official AWA essay topics: https://www.mba.com/the-gmat/test-struct ... 00606.ashx

On test day, if you're lucky, you'll see a topic you already wrote about.

Cheers,
Brent

Many Thanks Brent! Il keep your pointers in mind! and the conclusion, how should one finish it neatly?