GMAT Essays (AWA)

ESSAY QUESTION:

The following appeared in an article in a human resources magazine:

"Six months ago, in an experiment aimed at boosting worker productivity, Company Z started providing free gourmet lunches to its employees. The Company hoped that these office lunches would encourage employees to remain in the building during lunch-hour and motivate employees to work harder throughout the day. A survey found that soon after the lunch program was implemented, the average number of hours worked by most Company Z employees increased dramatically. During this same period, the Company's profits also increased substantially. Thus, it is safe to say that the lunch program was a huge success and that Company Z should make the program permanent."

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:
In the preceding statement, the author claims that after the company started providing gourmet lunches to the employees, the number of hours a employee worked in a day increased dramatically resulting in increased profits. Hence the company should make the free gourmet lunch a permanent program. Though this claim may well have merit, the author presents a poorly reasoned argument, based on several questionable premises and assumptions, and based solely on the evidence the author offers, we cannot accept his argument as valid.

The primary issue with the author's reasoning lies in his unsubstantiated premises. The author states the result of the survey which finds that after the company started providing gourmet lunches, the number of hours worked by most of company Z's employees increased substantially, but the author fails to provide evidence whether it was the same set of employees the company conducted the experiment on. Thus the author's premise, the basis for his argument, lacks any legitimate evidentiary support and render his conclusion unacceptable.

In addition, the author makes several assumptions that remain proven. The author commits the fallacy of correlation causation. The author assumes that the reason for the increased profits of the company was the increased number of hours worked by the employees. He also falsely assumes that an increase in productivity of the employee is directly correlated to an increase in working hours of the employee. The author fails to account that the gourmet lunch could have made the workers lazy, reducing their efficiency and resulting in an increase in working hours. Hence the author weakens his argument by making several assumptions which make his argument flawed.

While the author does have several key issues in his argument's premises and assumptions, that is not to say that the entire argument is without base. If the author provides evidence that the increased number of hours was not a result of lowered efficiency but a result of the free gourmet lunch scheme, then the authors argument would seem more credible to the reader. With proper research and clarification, he could improve his argument significantly.

In sum, the author's illogical argument is based on unsupported premises and unsubstantiated assumptions that render his conclusion invalid. If the author truly hopes to change his readers' mind on the issue, he would have to largely restructure his argument, fix the flaws in his logic, clearly explicate his assumptions, and provide evidentiary support. Without these things, his poorly reasoned argument will likely convince few people.

While the author does have several key issues in his argument's premises and assumptions, that is not to say that the entire argument is without base.

A bit of weirdness in the structure.

Its a definite 6, a wonderful write-up.