GMAT Essays (AWA)

" The common notion that workers are generally apathetic about management issues is false, or at least outdated: a recently published survey indicates that 79 percent of the nearly 1,200 workers who responded to survey questionnaires expressed a high level of interest in the topics of corporate restructuring and redesign of benefits programs."

The author has made numerous flaws in the argument. For instance, the author has not mentioned the industry/sector in which the survey was conducted. Also, there is no mention on the number of people who didnt respond to the survey at all along with the total population. In addition, 1200 is not a big population to get into a conclusion on an issue which applies for over billions. The topic under study for the survey also is mis-leading. In general, the argument lacks clarity and credibility.

First, the author has not mentioned the industry in which the survey was conducted. Is it service industry, where there is much of a gap between the top management and the workers or is it from the manufacturing sector, where the number of workers is quite large compared to the service industry. The author lacks clarity on the source of the survey.

Adding to this, the author has mentioned only the number of the workers who responded to the survey and does not manrtion the number of non-responders. For a survey to be credible, all data including the number of non-responders ( who have denied to respond) is much important. The argument misses out here as well.

Also, 79% out of 1200, does not seem to be a challenging ratio, to suspect and counter a common notion. Simply,1200 does not seem to hold a majority of the workers from over billions of work force. The argument has lacked influence with higher responders.

Finally, The topics that are not related to workers tent to have a serious aversion among them. Conversely, topics such as re-structuring, redesign of programs have much more impact on workers than any other and thus will generally provoke interest in them to respond.

In Sum, the argument will look much better if, the author has specified the industry in which the survey was taken. Also the argument should have mentioned the number of non-responders and shown the difference in the ratio, to make the argument more credible. There is also no clear count on the total estimation of the workers in the population, taken as a whole. Additionally, the survey topic seem to provoke response from the workers. Conversely surveys' conducted on other topics which are not generally interesting for the workers have not been considered or compared. Thus, by considering these changes will make the argument flawless.