GMAT Essays (AWA)

AWA ESSAYS: Analyze Issues
ESSAY QUESTION:
"In making a complex decision, one should trust experience more than instinct."

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the position stated above. Support your viewpoint using reasons and examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.


YOUR RESPONSE:
Decision making is an important function in any arena of Business and also ones personal life and at times has led to make or break situation thus it has a huge impact be it in the overall sustainability of the business or be it the success of an individual. It is a complex role and has theories which are accepted worldwide to support it steps or significance.
Humans tend to learn from life and there experiences and consecutively apply their experiences into further practise and that is the whole idea of learning and so complex decisions do need to be based on experience than gut instinct. Complex decisions are generally thought upon and most of the times argued upon Eg: Individuals who face a dillema of joining a Job of there interest and Job which pays more, the individual cannot take up an assignment on his instinct by not evaluating the requirements of his job. If he gets in with closed eyes he would more or less end up performing in a sub standard manner and will have to bear the consequences
Another day to day example is of a student who decided to make his way through civil services and lets his instinct help him out, instead of his experience and logical reasoning ability he surely cant crack the exam and would face disappointment. Which may even hamper his decision to pursue his dreams.
In the terms of Business majority of complex decisions are to be made by top level managers and these are people who understand the business well and can evaluate situations using there past experiences and also use there instinct. Business no doubt have a huge element of risks to be taken and these risks are generally calculated, and some entrepreneurs may judge there decisions in favor of there instinct but the results may not be guaranteed they do have the board of directors who give the entrepreneur the much needed advice on the front of there experience which do play a role in the final decisions in majority of the cases. Instincts work for easier decisions and at times can even guide a complex decision but the foundations are laid better by the years of experience.



AWA ESSAYS: Analyze Argument
ESSAY QUESTION:
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:
Spending leisure time on productive activities instead of shopping need to be adopted by Americans so as to retain a competitive advantage over other countries forms the basis of the above lying argument.Author as a through critique tries to support his statement by putting forth a research study analysis. Reasoning behind this is very narrow and does not cite proper analogy.
The major flaws in the argument are firstly it considers people to be productive during there leisure time and wants them to be productive when they are not expected to do so. Secondly holiday shopping in most cases are shopping calenders and times when family bonding and reunion occurs which leads to heavy satisfaction quotient and further leads to better productivity. Thirdly it also assumes a time frame which may not be significant (more than a quarter of there leisure time) also ignores the possibility of people utilizing the rest of the time in productive activities.
The support evidences such as pursuing educational enhancement or voluntary participation are areas of personal interests and no man would eventually perform in the front unless he wants to, had he given a hint about personal satisfaction quotient that the following activities could lead to or given specific details as to how the following activities had led to overall increase in standard of living in the area etc the logic would be more sound
The argument can be weakened by fact sheet supporting that the leisure time shopping is restrictive to only holiday seasons and people more or less dont get time post work hours on a weekly schedule to manage shopping, also if the non essential goods only find a place in a family's holiday budget. Also if reports state the actual cause for losing competitive advantage is improper use of resources and productive time the argument would be thrashed
In order to make the argument better the author needs to introduce examples of the increased demand of non essential goods in the market also increased number of foot falls in shopping arenas and other shopping related trends,Major help need in the weakened sections of the society and organisations calling for help. It can also cite hazards of being a Shopaholic and thereby educating society. The argument can overall be positioned better

Hi,
I will just comment on some of the grammatical mistakes I see in your argument essay. Take this in a positive way.

Spending leisure time on productive activities instead of shopping need to be adopted by Americans so as to retain a competitive advantage over other countries forms the basis of the above lying argument.Author as a through critique tries to support his statement by putting forth a research study analysis. Reasoning behind this is very narrow and does not cite proper analogy.
The major flaws in the argument are firstly it considers people to be productive during there leisure time and wants them to be productive when they are not expected to do so. Secondly holiday shopping in most cases are shopping calenders and times when family bonding and reunion occurs which leads to heavy satisfaction quotient and further leads to better productivity. Thirdly it also assumes a time frame which may not be significant (more than a quarter of there leisure time) also ignores the possibility of people utilizing the rest of the time in productive activities.
The support evidences such as pursuing educational enhancement or voluntary participation are areas of personal interests and no man would eventually perform in the front unless he wants to , had(. Had) he given a hint about personal satisfaction quotient that the following activities could lead to or given specific details as to how the following activities had led to overall increase in standard of living in the area etc the logic would be more sound .
The argument can be weakened by fact sheet supporting that the leisure time shopping is restrictive to only holiday seasons and people more or less don't get time post work hours on a weekly schedule to manage shopping, also if the non essential goods only find a place in a family's holiday budget. Also if reports state the actual cause for losing competitive advantage is improper use of resources and productive time the argument would be thrashed .
In order to make the argument better the author needs to introduce examples of the increased demand of non essential goods in the market also increased number of foot falls in shopping arenas and other shopping related trends,Major help need in the weakened sections of the society and organisations calling for help. It can also cite hazards of being a Shopaholic and thereby educating society. The argument can overall be positioned better .

1)Spending leisure time on productive activities instead of shopping need to be adopted - I guess 'needs' is appropriate as the subject is spending(singular).
2)The major flaws in the argument are firstly it considers people to be productive - consider to be is unidiomatic. considers people productive is correct.
3)I guess it is not good to write the major flaws are firstly... Secondly.. . Thirdly ...
If you are writing the flaws are use commas after each flaw. If you are trying to use full stops better use pointers.
4) wants them to be productive when they are not expected to do so. - I think it is not safe to use 'to do so' because you are referring to being productive(not doing something). 'to be so' might be better.
5)Secondly holiday shopping in most cases are shopping calenders and times when family bonding and reunion occurs which leads to heavy satisfaction quotient and further leads to better productivity. -
I may be wrong but I am not sure on the structure of this sentence. Did you mean '...and at times family bonding and reunion occurs which leads to...'. Please discuss this with an expert.
6) which may not be significant (more than a quarter of there leisure time) also ignores the possibility of people utilizing the rest of the time in productive activities. - replace there with 'their'. I guess you need to add 'and' before also because if you remove the parenthesis the sentence doesn't make complete sense.
7)The support evidences such as - I guess it should be supporting.

Hey, please check your punctuation. You are missing commas in between and forgetting full stops at the end of each para. Moreover, try to use simpler sentences. You are forming too many compound sentences. Try to use appropriate keywords. You can even look at some templates posted on this site or articles by experts.
I guess it is better to write the summary using 'In sum' or 'In summary' or 'In conclusion' etc and re-state the summary, re-acknowledge other side of the thesis as well.
Just go through Stacey's article on AWA argument written on October 28th, 2010 from the library.

Thanks a ton for the evaluation
I wanted to know is my reasoning ok or do I need to work on it significantly?
Also I am more worried about the Issue essay, If you could elaborate I would be grateful

Hi,
Sorry, I am very exhausted and in no mood to look into issue essay now and I might not give a fair analysis. I will try to add as much as I can tomorrow. You can even PM an expert to respond. Btw, there is no need to panic about improving significantly. You just have to remember the basics, and you don't need to do any thorough analysis. I will post few links, which I found really helpful. I am not sure whether you have already seen those. Moreover, Try to use US examples whenever you can.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/10/ ... a-argument

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/06/ ... ssue-essay -> This particular article will answer your query about the content.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/03/ ... ssue-essay

https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6- ... 64327.html

https://www.beatthegmat.com/argument-ess ... 38032.html

These links should make you feel very comfortable. Just try practicing a couple of essays after going through those links. Good Luck!