How much can this fetch me? (Analysis of Argument)

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The argument is the fourth one from the list of Arguments relased by GMAC.

Here is the argument...

The following appeared in a report presented for discussion at a meeting of the directors of a company that manufactures parts for a heavy machinery.

"The falling revenues that the company is expecting coincides with delays in manufacturing. These delays, in turn are due in large part to poor planning in purchasing metals. Consider further that the manager of the department that handles purchasing of raw materials has an excellent background in general business, psychology and sociology, but knows little about the properties of metals. The company should therefore move the purchasing manager to the sales department and bring in a scientist from the research division to be manager of the purchasing department."

------- My analysis of this argument follows:-

The report concludes to move the current purchasing manager to sales department and bring in a scientist as a purchasing manager, as the revenue of the company is falling. The argument provides a chain of claims for arriving at this conclusion. It claims that lack of metal properties knowledge is causing poor planning in the purchasing department, which is leading to delays in overall manufacturing of the product. And due to this delay in manufacturing the revenues of the company are falling. The argument has several fallacies. This is more a personal attack on the manager than identifying the real reasons for the revenue drop. It provides only claims and no evidence for its claims.

Firstly, the argument merely claims that the fall in revenue coincides with the delays in the manufacturing. But it doesnot provide any evidence establishing clearly that, the delays are causing the revenue drop. The fall in revenue could be due to reduced market share or poor performance by marketting department. Secondly, it merely claims that delays in manufacturing is due, in large part, to poor planning in purchasing department, but does not provide any evidence in support of this. The report could have provided statistical information of delays happening at various stages in manufacturing process, thus highlighting delay in purchasing as a major one.

Thirdly the claim that poor planning is leading to delays in Purchasing department, has no evidence. The delay might be from the supplier of the materials who might not be providing the material
as promised. Fourhtly, the argument claims that knowledge of properties of metals is essential for making a proper planing in purchasing. But it
doesnot establish how the knowledge of pproperties of metals affects planning in purchasing.

Since the argument has several fallacies as sited in the explaination above. It doesn't convince its readers about its claims. To make it more
convincing, the author can include stastical information to establish the relation between delays in manufacturing and the drop in revenue. Author should provide more detailed information about various delays that are leading to the over all manifacturing delay and also provide more scientific information as to why the knowledge of metals is important for planning in purchasing.

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by 800guy » Sun Nov 19, 2006 3:01 pm
looks like at least a 5.0 to me. seems competitve to the 5.0 essays featured in the 800score guide.

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by kulksnikhil » Sun Nov 19, 2006 3:45 pm
800guy wrote:looks like at least a 5.0 to me. seems competitve to the 5.0 essays featured in the 800score guide.
Yep... I did refer to the 800Score guide... it is really useful and makes understanding the process of writing these essays easy. However, I am abit concerned to know that, Analysis of Issues need me to have subject knowleddge to some extent. Not sure.. what question I would get and whether I can manage that.

Meanwhile, if there are some comments on the above essay...a red carpet is waiting to welcome them :-d

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by 800guy » Sun Nov 19, 2006 3:54 pm
from what i understand about awa, it seems that essay structure and length are more important than content. this makes sense, since the first scoring pass is done by the e-reader...

that said, i think that you could have done better with your score if you had a 5 paragraph essay. (intro, three body paragraphs, conclusion). even though your 'firstly' sentence was short, i think you should have left it as its own paragraph. followed by 'secondly' as its on paragraph, and 'thirdly' as its own paragraph.

bottom line: be very careful about essay structure!! nice job.

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by kulksnikhil » Sun Nov 19, 2006 3:59 pm
800guy wrote:from what i understand about awa, it seems that essay structure and length are more important than content. this makes sense, since the first scoring pass is done by the e-reader...

that said, i think that you could have done better with your score if you had a 5 paragraph essay. (intro, three body paragraphs, conclusion). even though your 'firstly' sentence was short, i think you should have left it as its own paragraph. followed by 'secondly' as its on paragraph, and 'thirdly' as its own paragraph.

bottom line: be very careful about essay structure!! nice job.
thanks for the comments !! will take these into consideration in future trials !!

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kulksnikhil wrote:The argument is the fourth one from the list of Arguments relased by GMAC.

Here is the argument...

The following appeared in a report presented for discussion at a meeting of the directors of a company that manufactures parts for a heavy machinery.

"The falling revenues that the company is expecting coincides with delays in manufacturing. These delays, in turn are due in large part to poor planning in purchasing metals. Consider further that the manager of the department that handles purchasing of raw materials has an excellent background in general business, psychology and sociology, but knows little about the properties of metals. The company should therefore move the purchasing manager to the sales department and bring in a scientist from the research division to be manager of the purchasing department."

------- My analysis of this argument follows:-

The report concludes to move the current purchasing manager to sales department and bring in a scientist as a purchasing manager, as the revenue of the company is falling. The argument provides a chain of claims for arriving at this conclusion. It claims that lack of metal properties knowledge is causing poor planning in the purchasing department, which is leading to delays in overall manufacturing of the product. And due to this delay in manufacturing the revenues of the company are falling. The argument has several fallacies. This is more a personal attack on the manager than identifying the real reasons for the revenue drop. It provides only claims and no evidence for its claims.

Firstly, the argument merely claims that the fall in revenue coincides with the delays in the manufacturing. But it doesnot provide any evidence establishing clearly that, the delays are causing the revenue drop. The fall in revenue could be due to reduced market share or poor performance by marketting department. Secondly, it merely claims that delays in manufacturing is due, in large part, to poor planning in purchasing department, but does not provide any evidence in support of this. The report could have provided statistical information of delays happening at various stages in manufacturing process, thus highlighting delay in purchasing as a major one.

Thirdly the claim that poor planning is leading to delays in Purchasing department, has no evidence. The delay might be from the supplier of the materials who might not be providing the material
as promised. Fourhtly, the argument claims that knowledge of properties of metals is essential for making a proper planing in purchasing. But it
doesnot establish how the knowledge of pproperties of metals affects planning in purchasing.

Since the argument has several fallacies as sited in the explaination above. It doesn't convince its readers about its claims. To make it more
convincing, the author can include stastical information to establish the relation between delays in manufacturing and the drop in revenue. Author should provide more detailed information about various delays that are leading to the over all manifacturing delay and also provide more scientific information as to why the knowledge of metals is important for planning in purchasing.


To start of with - very well written - a 4.5 or 5 at the least! :)

Now since you've asked for suggestions here are my two cents worth:

When you begin paras with words like Firstly, Secondly (which is a very good thing to do where ever possibly btw) try and keep the follow. Don't group two points in one para - in your eassay at the first glance it looks like you've gone from Firstly to thridly - I know you didn't but don't make the scorer (whether e-rater or human) 'work' to find anything - present everything in the most easy to access form.

Avoid present continous tense - It is a difficult tense to maintance for long sentences and usually gets unmanageable and confusing.

Sentences like : " but does not provide any evidence in support of this." - would be better phrased " but does not provide any evidence to support this." - marginally simpler I think.

Once again, this my two cents worth - I am certainly no authority on essays and therefore follow my suggestions only if you agree with them! :)

Best of luck with your prep!! Happy New Year!!!

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by beatthegmat » Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:46 am
Great review, bluestocking!
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Thanks!

by bluestocking » Wed Jan 03, 2007 12:14 pm
:)

You are too kind Eric - not to mention very sweet to actually keep track of all the posts.

On behalf of allll of us users - Thank you for doing such self less work.

warm regards,
Pramila

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Re: Thanks!

by beatthegmat » Wed Jan 03, 2007 12:25 pm
bluestocking wrote::)

You are too kind Eric - not to mention very sweet to actually keep track of all the posts.

On behalf of allll of us users - Thank you for doing such self less work.

warm regards,
Pramila
Yes, I do read almost every post--I need to get a life! :)

Thanks again.
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The essay

by amitamit2020 » Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:18 pm
The argument analysis is rated at 4.0 by an e-rater at www.wayabroad.com. However not sure what can make it to 6?

Can any one help?

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Re: The essay

by beatthegmat » Sun Feb 11, 2007 1:37 am
amitamit2020 wrote:The argument analysis is rated at 4.0 by an e-rater at www.wayabroad.com. However not sure what can make it to 6?

Can any one help?
Have you had a chance to review some of the documents featured on the GMAT Resource Wiki (https://www.beatthegmat.com/wiki) for AWA? There are some guidelines there for determining what it takes to score well on this section.
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by Stacey Koprince » Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:56 pm
There are also a number of grammatical and spelling errors in this essay. With this same logic, strength of argument, and organization, if the essay also had minimal errors, it would have been a 5.

Note one thing: you don't want a 6. Unless you are already a phenomenal writer, the amount of brainpower it takes to get a 6 will negatively impact your performance on the multiple choice sections still to come. Schools don't care if you score a 5 or a 6 - that will have no impact on their admissions decision.

So aim for a 5, not a 6, on the essays! :)
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by manred » Wed Feb 14, 2007 8:39 pm
Hi, this is my first post on the forum. Have been visiting the forum for quite some time though.
Not a very good writer myself but I have few point to make after reading the essay.

The essay has got a structure, great coherence and is very logically written. But the writnig style has been too predictive. For example, "the argument merely claims" or "the claim" (both of which look pretty similar)is used at the start of each paragraph. Also few other phrases are repeated which makes the essay little predictive. Instead if different phrases had been used then it would add a lot more variety of the essay. Another point I observed is there are few sentences/phrases which are replicated from the original argument. instead the same message could have been conveyed using different sentence/phrase. And also as stacey mention eliminating the grammatical errors would have made this a splendid piece of writing.

Well all said, Iam not very sure if i have some valid points for improvement. feel free to comment. Feeling good to start writing on the forum.

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by beatthegmat » Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:10 pm
manred wrote:Hi, this is my first post on the forum. Have been visiting the forum for quite some time though.
Not a very good writer myself but I have few point to make after reading the essay.

The essay has got a structure, great coherence and is very logically written. But the writnig style has been too predictive. For example, "the argument merely claims" or "the claim" (both of which look pretty similar)is used at the start of each paragraph. Also few other phrases are repeated which makes the essay little predictive. Instead if different phrases had been used then it would add a lot more variety of the essay. Another point I observed is there are few sentences/phrases which are replicated from the original argument. instead the same message could have been conveyed using different sentence/phrase. And also as stacey mention eliminating the grammatical errors would have made this a splendid piece of writing.

Well all said, Iam not very sure if i have some valid points for improvement. feel free to comment. Feeling good to start writing on the forum.
Great first post! Welcome manred!
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mini scholarship

by aim-wsc » Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:41 pm
guys have you guys checked MINI SCHOLARSHIP SECTION?

the last date is closin' in 8) :?