GMAT Essays (AWA)

Hi,

I would be grateful if you could rate my essays. I am trying to keep them short and write them within 15 - 20 mins and save energy for Quant and Verbal. Please do let me know what you think .

ESSAY QUESTION:

The following appeared in an article in a human resources magazine:

"Six months ago, in an experiment aimed at boosting worker productivity, Company Z started providing free gourmet lunches to its employees. The Company hoped that these office lunches would encourage employees to remain in the building during lunch-hour and motivate employees to work harder throughout the day. A survey found that soon after the lunch program was implemented, the average number of hours worked by most Company Z employees increased dramatically. During this same period, the Company's profits also increased substantially. Thus, it is safe to say that the lunch program was a huge success and that Company Z should make the program permanent."

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.

MY RESPONSE

The aforementioned argument that providing employees with free gourmet lunches during lunch hour helps increase productivity and hence has a positive effect on a company's profits , at first glance seems to a coherent and fairly convincing argument. However, upon further examination of the argument and its underlying structure, flaws in the argument become evident to such an extent that one can neither take its assumptions nor its conclusion seriously. The argument is based on flawed assumptions and hasty generalizations and would therefore fail to convince its readers. It also lacks the information necessary to support its claims.

Firstly, the assumption that just because employees are provided with gourmet lunches they will be encouraged to stay in during lunch hour and hence have a positive effect on productivity is flawed. Some employees might use their lunch hour as break from being at their workplace and still be might like to eat out.

In addition, correlating the company's profits with gourmet lunches being offered to employees is a hasty generalization. Gauging the effect the free lunches with employee's motivation levels and morale should be first step that the company before it can generalize that the free gourmet lunches would actually increase their profits.

Furthermore, the argument does not approach to base its claims from the employee perspective. This information is vital to gauge their attitude towards the free lunches. It would also help the reader understand if an alternative view of the correlation between free lunches and company productitivity exists.

In sum, the argument suffers for a number of flaws, the most blatant of which have been discussed above. Had the aforementioned concerns been address, the argument might have been able to convince its readers. But in its current form, one can only conclude that it is based on flawed assumptions, deficiencies in information and hasty generalizations.

If I were a grader, I'd give this a three. Your intro and conclusion paragraphs are quite good; they take a clear position and explain it sufficiently. However, your body paragraphs fall short. A paragraph needs to have more than two sentences; three should generally be the minimum. And your paragraphs (even the third one, which does have three sentences) need to more fully explain the flaws you see.
Also, you're focusing too much on the actual issue of employee productivity and lunches here. Reframe each body paragraph to focus more on the argument's structure. Use some of the words and ideas from Critical Reasoning to guide you on this. For example, in your second body paragraph, the topic sentence is promising. But the second sentence discusses the company without mentioning the argument at all. An example of how to reframe that sentence to focus more on the logic of the argument might be, "The author doesn't provide sufficient evidence to establish that the free lunches are actually the cause of the improved employee motivation and morale. The argument would be strengthened by the addition of information showing the causal link between free lunches and workplace attitude improvements; as it is, this link is merely a correlation, and is therefore insufficient."
Finally, devote a few minutes at the end to proofreading. You have some missing words and grammatical errors that are distracting to the reader, and might impede understanding of your argument.
I understand the idea of keeping your essays shorter to save energy for the rest of the test, but if you're applying to schools that actually look at the essay scores, I think that's a big mistake. The admissions committee is going to be left with one of three impressions: (1) You're just not a good writer (which makes you look very bad, of course), (2) The truth: you skimped on the essays to save energy for the rest of the test (which makes it look like you're not a good enough test-taker to do both, as many other students do), or (3) You don't have enough respect for the process to bother taking every part of it seriously (which is, I would imagine, a little insulting to them as admissions personnel). I don't think any of those impressions will benefit you. I'd suggest using all of the time allotted to produce a quality essay.

Thanks Andrea. I actually scored a 6 on AWA on my 1st GMAT attempt. I just wanted save time and effort and really focus on Quant and Verbal this time. Guess the short paras for the body just don't cut it .... Thanks again, for your kind and helpful comments!