Essay Review would be highly appreciated

[fishfreakMaddin]

Hello everybody,

I am quite new to this forum, but have studied intensively for both the Verbal and Quant sections on the GMAT already. By taking several practice CATs I have gotten an idea of the scores, which I am quite satisfied with. However, I would really appreciate any help on reviewing my essays and giving me some advice on these. I would like to post them in this thread, as I am working on them - and I hope that I can make some progress.

So here is the first one I took:

The following appeared in the opinion section of a national newsmagazine:

"To reverse the deterioration of the postal service, the government should raise the price of postage stamps. This solution will no doubt prove effective, since the price increase will generate larger revenues and will also reduce the volume of mail, thereby eliminating the strain on the existing system and contributing to improved morale."

The author of the above stated opinion argues that increasing the price of postage stamps would be an effective measure to eliminate the strain on the existing system of the postal service. However, this conclusion is flawed, because it is based on inaccurate assumptions detailed in the following.

Firstly, the author states that raising the price of postage stamps will generate larger revenues while the volume of mail will decrease. Thus, he assumes a proportional relationship between prices and revenues. This relationship, however, is limited in most markets. Increasing prices will usually make customers buy competitor products. At the same time, the author states that the volume of mail will also be reduced by his proposed measure. This contradicts the previous assumption, as revenues can not increase proportionally to the price increase without the quantity of mail being constant. In general, the author fails to provide accurate evidence for the relationship between prices and demand in the postal service market.

Secondly, it is mentioned that implementing the proposed measures will eliminate the deterioration of the postal service. While increasing the price of postage stamps may certainly reduce the volume of mail, it is highly questionable, whether this would completely eliminate the strain on the existing system. On the one hand, the author implies that the quantity of mail is the only problem of the system in place and fails to consider other factors, such as inherent technical weaknesses of such a system. There is no proof that this is the case. On the other hand, he exaggerates the potential impact of the proposed measures without providing sufficient evidence that such a correlation exists.

Lastly, the author mentioned that reducing the amount of mail being processed will contribute to improved morale without providing any evidence for this relationship. In fact, increasing prices may also have the opposite effect on a company, as customers may use the postal service of competitors. Depending on the number of customers being lost, this may actually decrease revenues and leave the company with even less profit, assuming that costs stay constant. In such a case, the morale of the employees is likely to suffer.

All in all, the argument fails to acknowledge the variety of factors that it is based on, such as the relationship between prices and demand in the postal service market, the relationship of the volume of mail and the functioning of the system, and also the impact of changes in these parameters on morale. Against this background, the conclusion drawn by the author can not be supported, as further evidence is required to prove it.

Thank you a lot for any comments, advice and estimations regarding the scoring.

Martin