GMAT Essays (AWA)

Hi,

Please rate and provide feedbacks to first my argument essay, this is from OG 12:

"The computerized on-board warning system that will be installed in commercial airliners will virtually solve the problem of midair plane collisions. One plane's warning system can receive signals from another's transponder--a radio set that signals a planes's course--in order to determine the likelihood of a collision and recommend evasive action".

I greatly appreciate your helps and opinions!




Nowadays, technology not only makes daily lives more efficient and effective, it might also help preventing disasters and thus save human lives. The midair plane collisions have long troubled commercial airliners because of the unforeseeable danger occurring in midair that are hard to be recognized and responded to. The author claims that this problem can be solved with the invention of computerized on-board warning system which allows the plane to avoid such catastrophic problem by signaling the approaching of another plane with providing information about the other plane's course to gauge the likelihood of a collision and thus offer evasion action strategy. Even though the author's proposal has merit, it has shortcomings due to logical flaws in its premises and assumptions.

The authors' premises contain some weaknesses that need to be addressed to make the argument more sound. The primary issue is that the author doesn't prove that determining that likelihood of the collision and recommend the evasive action will definitely help the plane to avoid the clash. There are other possibilities that can occur. For example, even if the pilot sees the signal from the other plane and has a clear strategy on how to avoid the plane, there might be some external forces that disable the pilot to react, for example, technical glitches with the plane operating system. Thus, the author's claim that the invention of the system will virtually solve the problem of midair plane collision is not entirely sustainable. Secondly, the author does not describe how effective these evasive actions are, more specifically, how feasible they are in various situations. We must not neglect the fact that likelihood of collision varies from case to case and there are a lot of uncertainties that can occur in midair.

There are also some issues with the author's assumptions that make the argument fall prey to skepticisms. First of all, the author makes the unsupported assumption that the only reason why midair plane collision can occur is because of failure to detect the signal of the coming plane's course. This assumption is not supported by any evidence or statistics to show that this is the case across the board for all midair collision cases. Furthermore, the author seems to suggest that the pilot is fully in control of the situation and can handle the problem of a possible collision simply by getting out of the way of the approaching plane. This assumption simply doesn't consider the fact that bad weather can give pilot a tough time to navigate the fluctuating wind flow and to easily switch course.

If the author wants to support his argument and make it more persuasive, he/she needs to incorporate several major pieces of evidence. For example, the author needs to provide data and experts' opinions to prove that midair plane collision occurs solely due to failure to receive signal of the other plane and evade the other plane. The author also has to provide more details with regard to show feasible these recommended solutions are under different circumstances, not just for the case of good weather which allows pilot to carry the order with more ease. In addition, the argument should also incorporate the evidence of success rates of commercial planes operating with such system and the success rate should be close to 100% in order to prove that it will "virtually solve the problem of midair plane collision".

In sum, the proposal sounds very promising, however, it needs to be strengthened with resolving the issues underlying the premises and assumptions and to be furnished with more evidence and data. With further evidence and resolution to the stated problems with assumptions and premises, the argument is only as good as a proposal that paints a rosy picture gets.