GMAT Essays (AWA)

I would appreciate it so much if someone could critique my essay or even tell me if it's good enough to be given a score over 4.5. Please and THANKYOU!

Here is the argument provided:

The following appeared as part of an article reviewing summer camps for children.

Parents, if you need a summer camp for your children look no further than Federville Farms. In a recent survey, Federville Farms ranked first in both overall camper satisfaction and in food quality, and second in the variety of outdoor activities. Federville Farms has been family owned and operated for over forty years, so you have nothing to worry about when it comes to your child's safety, and it employs more Red Cross certified lifeguards than any other camp in the state. If you seek the best camp experience for your children, Federville Farms is the best choice you can make.

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.

Here is my response:

The argument that Federville Farms is the best choice for parents to send their kids to summer camp omits some important concerns that must be addressed to substantiate the argument. This statement describes how it is top ranked in a recent survey in camper in categories that seems to data collected by the campers, who are assumed to be children, has been family owned and operated for over forty years and that it employs more Red Cross certified lifeguards than any other camp. These statements alone do not constitute a thorough argument of why Federville Farms is the best camp experience for children and it certainly does not provide proof of it's qualifications of safety.

The argument does not address which survey it was ranked the highest in or who took the survey. If Fedverville Farms created the survey itself and asked each of it's campers to fill it out, the results would be very biased especially if the Federville Farms is the only camp that the children have ever been to. But if the survey had been a national survey that included data from all camps or the most popular camps then this statement would be valid. However, if this article is directed at the parents of the campers, by incorporating statistics provided by parents satisfaction would strengthen the argument. The argument also infers that because Federville Farms is family owned and operated for 40 years that it is a safe camp. However, this statement is based on the camp's own opinion which does not specify it's standards of safety or compare it's safety to other non-family owned camps. If family owned camps are less regulated by federal standards than non-family owned camps then the camp may be less safe than regulated camps. Finally, to support it's own claim of safety, the argument states that it employs more Red Cross certified lifeguards than any other camp in the state but fails to mention how many other camps there are in the state. As a result, if Federville Farms is the only camp in the state, by employing only one lifeguard this statement would be proven true. Another flaw with this statement is that Federville Farms states that it is second ranked in the variety of out door activities, which means that there are more activities that involve swimming. To create a more persuasive argument about the safety of Federville Farms, it could state that every camp leader is a certified Red Cross lifeguard and CPR.

Because the argument leaves out several key issues, it is not sound or credible. If it included the items discussed above instead of making empty statements that lack important details the article would have been more sound and convincing.

Hi,

The overall construction is good and you will get a good score.
I would still suggest a slight improvement. You might want to make the reasoning more coherent.

For instance, instead of writing

The argument does not address which...

you could have written,
To start with/ First of all/ Firstly..

Likewise for the second flaw

The argument also infers that...

you could have written
Additionally/ Moreover/ Secondly...

and so on for all the subsequent flaws.

Try to change paragraphs so that your essay looks neater and not like a heavy block of words, too conspicuous to kill the flow.

All the Best.