PLease analysis and grade my essay.

This topic has expert replies
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2012 12:54 am

PLease analysis and grade my essay.

by piyushkr87 » Sat Aug 11, 2012 3:30 am
Analysis of an Argument

"The recent surge in violence in the southern part of the city is a result of a shortage of police officers and an absence of leadership on the part of the city council. In order to rectify the burgeoning growth of crime that threatens the community, the city council must address this issue seriously. Instead of spending time on peripheral issues such as education quality, community vitality, and job opportunity, the city council must realize that the crime issue is serious and double the police force, even if this action requires budget cuts from other city programs."

Violence is the manifestation of human frustration. Violence is usually the result of someone getting information too fast for them to process. Without enough time for a person to rationalize and deal with disturbing information he/she lashes out in an attempt to stop the assault on the "comfort zone" in their mind. In the preceding statement, the author claims that the city council is not doing its job well needs to focus on significantly expanding its police force to deal with the recent surge in violence in the southern part of the city. The premise of the argument is that crime is expanding while the city council focuses on ostensibly unrelated matters such as education reforms and employment. However, the argument is flawed because it falsely assumes that the city council's efforts to improve quality of life are entirely unrelated to levels of violence and it assumes that the crime problem can be solved by merely increasing the police force. Though his 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 argument wrongly assumes that issues of educational opportunity, community vitality, and job availability have no bearing on crime. It is entirely possible that the crime level spiked due to a recent and sizeable layoff at a major nearby factory that pushed countless citizens out of work and onto the streets. With individuals struggling to survive, it should come as no surprise that people are turning to crime. Also, the surge in crime may be attributed to many other reasons such as food shortage, increased supply of illegal weapons or even inactivity of the current police officers.

Secondarily, the author assumes that increasing the police force will directly address the root of the crime problem and reduce the level of crime. Yet, a landmark study published in early 2008 showed that increasing the size of a police force beyond a certain point provides extremely small marginal returns in the reduction of crime. The assumption that the local police force is insufficient is not supported well, hence a doubling of the police force will materially decrease the crime rate is superfluous. The case may be of a large but inefficient police officers leading to the rise in crime. The author's premises, the basis for his argument, lack any legitimate evidentiary support and render his conclusion unacceptable.

In addition, the author makes several assumptions that remain unproven. The assumption that the city council's focus on improving education and creating employment opportunities are completely unrelated to surge in crime is not proved. The author weakens his argument by making assumptions and failing to provide explication of the links between circumstances such as poor education, low employment and increasing crime, he assumes does not exists.
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. The argument could be improved by explicitly stating that the level of education and employment have been reasonably good in the recent times. Also, no other external factors such as infiltration of outside criminals in the city, tardiness by current police officers are responsible for the increased crime. Additionally, the argument could be improved by appealing to the city's history with fighting crime and managing the size of its police force. In particular, approximately 25 years ago, the city council faced a situation very similar to the one it faces today: a rising crime rate and growing spending on community development. The city council decided to increase the size of its afterschool programs' budget by about 75% and this reduced crime dramatically. Faced with the same situation today, the city council should follow the path it took 25 years ago. Though there are several issues with the author's reasoning at present, with 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. The explication that only a significant increase in the number of current police officers will resolve the city's crime issues cannot be concluded from the argument at present. If the author truly hopes to change his readers' minds 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.

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 578
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 6:00 pm
Thanked: 136 times
Followed by:62 members

by KapTeacherEli » Wed Aug 15, 2012 8:57 am
Hi piyushkr,

Good job here! This is a 5 essay. The language is clear and fluid, with few significant typos and errors. Your structure is great, your reasoning is spot-on, and overall it's very smooth.

There are two main things that detracts from this being a 6. First, the first three sentences of your essay. I'm not sure what meaning they were intended to convey, but it didn't seem at all connected to the rest of your essay. Don't include things just so include them! Only include things that directly fit in to your plan to advance your thesis.

Second, the historical data of this city is inappropriate. "Making up" statistics like the 2008 police force study is acceptable, though not actually necessary. However, making up information about the city in the prompt is not. It's obvious that the claim there is entirely fictional, because the prompt doesn't even name the city! The GMAT isn't testing your ability to fabricate supporting or weakening arguments; it's testing more abstract skills than that.

Good job, and keep up the good work!
Eli Meyer
Kaplan GMAT Teacher
Cambridge, MA
www.kaptest.com/gmat

ImageImageImage