GMAT Essays (AWA)

hmgp22 wrote:The following appeared in The Homebuilder magazine, a local publication with a focus on construction and sale of real-estate properties:

"According to the most recent survey of our readers, nearly 70% of the respondents indicated that they are planning to build or purchase a new home over the next 2 years. These results indicate that the growth in the construction industry is likely to accelerate in the near future. Therefore, this industry continues to offer lucrative opportunities for investment."

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 passage, the author argues that growth in the construction industry is likely to accelerate in the near future, continuing to offer lucrative opportunities for investment. The author bases their argument on the observation that 70 percent of respondents to their survey indicated that they plan to build or purchase a new home over the next 2 years. Overall, the argument is not sound as it contains several rather significant assumptions. The argument also fails to provide a decent number of data to substantiate its claims.

First, the author makes a lofty assumption that their magazine's survey is representative of the entire construction industry. In the author's argument, he or she states that 70 percent of the respondents indicated that they plan to build or purchase a new home over the next 2 years. Just because 70 percent of respondents indicated this does not mean that it is representative of the entire construction industry. For instance, the Homebuilder magazine may be catered towards a very narrow and niche demographic that loves building houses and is not concerned about finances. On the other hand, perhaps a large number of homebuilders are actually risk-averse at the moment and do not plan to build a house in the near term.

Second, the author does not provide sufficient evidence and data to substantiate his claim that the construction industry's growth will most likely accelerate in the near future. Assuming 70 percent of the respondents actually did say they planned to build or purchase a new home, it does not necessarily guarantee that the construction is industry is likely to accelerate in the near future. For example, the respondents could very well change their mind later on about purchasing a new home. The fact is, there is not enough data to conclude that such an effect would occur with just a simple survey.

Finally, as a reader, we do not know how the survey was implemented and how it was structured so using this as a premise to bolster the author's claims is not sound. As a general example, the survey's sample could have been very small in the double digits. Typically, the smaller the sample size, the less likely it would accurate. Similarly, as a reader, we do not know whether the survey administrators made a strong effort to sample a random population. If not, the survey may have been very well skewed towards readers that love building houses. The fact is, there is not conclusive data for us to know the quality of this survey. Therefore, using the results of an internal survey to base one's argument on is deeply flawed.

In sum, the argument is mostly flawed as it lacks a sufficient amount of evidence and data to back up their claims. Moreover, the argument contains several big assumptions, which do not help make the argument logically sound. To improve their argument, the author should not rely on a survey to base his or her claims. The author should also add more statistics and data as evidence to bolster his argument