Please help rate my AWA! Thanks a lot

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Please help rate my AWA! Thanks a lot

by Phat Hoang » Sun Aug 12, 2012 12:59 am
"The inflow of immigrant workers into our community has put a downward pressure on wages. In fact, the average compensation of unskilled labor in our city has declined by nearly 10% over the past 5 years. Therefore, to protect our local economy, it is essential to impose a moratorium on further immigration."

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.

ANSWER:

From the preceding statement, the author claims that the inflow of immigrant workers makes wages decrease. Therefore, further immigration needs to be temporary prohibited to secure local economy. The claim may have good merit; however, the author presents poorly reasoned argument, based on several questionable premises, and based on the evidence the author provides, we cannot accept the conclusion as valid.

The primary issue of the author's argument lies in his or her unsubstantiated premises. Firstly, the author mentions only immigrant workers as only factors that put negative impact on wages. He or she does not include other economic elements that can support to draw big picture for the reasoning. Secondly, the number of 10% decline in average compensation of unskilled labor is provided without norm for readers to put any benchmark on. The premises, the basis of the author's argument, fail to provide legitimate supports and render the conclusion unacceptable.

In addition, the author makes several assumptions that remain unproven. The author at the beginning refers to only unskilled labor group in the society but later links directly to the economy. That is clearly a big jump because there is no supported information saying that unskilled labor group is representative for the economy. Also, wage is the only factor when people mention the economy; therefore, it is too ambitious to assume that only statistics on wage's downward trend can definitely demonstrate the entire economy. The author weakens his or her argument by making assumptions and failing to provide explication for the assumptions between the wage's trend and the economy's situation, between unskilled labor group to the whole economy.

While the author does have several key issues in the argument's premises and assumptions, that is not to say that the entire argument is without base. The conclusion will be much more convincing if the author can provide more statistic that can strengthen the relationship between wages and the economy. Moreover, the reasoning will be more solid if there is data showing the percentage of unskilled labor force in the city's total workforce. At last, if the author can provide other cities's successful case studies in applying this policy, the argument will be much trustworthy. Although there are several key issues with the author's reasoning, with further research and clarifications the author can improve his or her argument significantly.

In sum, the author cites a poorly reasoned argument by providing unsubstantiated premises and unsupported assumptions. He or she needs to largely restructure the argument, clearly provide examples and fix flaws in the logic. Without these things, the author's argument can likely convince few people.[/b]

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by KapTeacherEli » Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:09 pm
Hi Phat,

Thanks for posting this essay!

I'd probably score this essay a 3, which is unfortunately a score the GMAT considers "unsatisfactory." The main reason is style. It looks to me like you are trying very hard to sound formal and fancy. You start with "From the preceding statement," which should be "In the preceding statement." Your next sentence says that immigration needs to be "temporary prohibited," which should be "temporarily halted," using an adverb and not using the over-strong "prohibit." And finally, you say "this claim may have good merit," but the word "good" is unidiomatic and redundant. All of these errors look like the type of errors I see trying to mask their struggles with English by writing in highfalutin language. You don't need to do that!

The GMAT essay is a test of your English, true, but more importantly, it's a test of your organization and reasoning skills. When you're writing in this style, you not only fail to make your writing any better, you obscure your ideas and paragraph structure. This is a shame, because it looks like you have solid organization and good logical points--but they're hard to pick out. If you stick with simple language that you can use confidently and correctly, your essay may not look as elaborate. But it will put your logic and reasoning clearly on display, and that will raise your score significantly.

Good luck, and keep up the hard work!

Regards,

Eli
Eli Meyer
Kaplan GMAT Teacher
Cambridge, MA
www.kaptest.com/gmat

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by Phat Hoang » Wed Aug 15, 2012 4:18 am
Thanks Eli for your detailed response! I surely take your comments and work forward.