awa review

[Mansoor Farooqui]

Hi,

Mgmat tests donot review the awa questions. Please help me with review of following 2 ques. My date is near. I just wanted to analyze..where I stand in awa


AWA ESSAYS: Analyze Argument
ESSAY QUESTION:
The following appeared as part of a campaign statement for Velazquez, who is seeking election as alderman in the town of Barchester:

"Under Police Commissioner Draco, the city of Spartanburg began jailing people for committing petty crimes such as littering, shoplifting, and spraying graffiti. Criminals in Spartanburg must have understood that lawlessness would no longer be tolerated, because the following year Spartanburg saw a 20% drop in violent crimes such as homicide. Our town should learn from Commissioner Draco’s success, and begin a large-scale crackdown on petty crime."

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.

YOUR RESPONSE:
The argument given above claims that implementing of strict laws for petty crimes in one city led to the drop in violent crimes and also implementing the same laws in other cities would give same results. This argument is based on some questionable assumptions and omits some very important concerns that must be addressed to substantiate the argument. The line of reasoning of author is false causuality and false analogy.

Firstly, the argument claims that implementation of strict laws for petty crimes has led to drop in violent crimes such as homicide. The author fails to consider any alternative explanation for this drop. It may be possible that number of violent crimes registered may not be accurate or the people in the city has become more protective and careful against such crimes. Both of these reasons if true will lead to drop in the violent crimes. But the argument does not completely justify this and therefore any sound conclusion cannot be made.

Secondly, the author claims that the implementation of similar laws for petty crimes would lead to drop in crimes in another city as well. This is false comparison as the results may not be same, because different cities may have different law situations and crime rates and therefor same approach may not be valid. For example, if homicides in another city are due to religion disputes, the strict laws for petty crimes will not solve the problem.

Because the author leaves several key issues, this argument is not sound and persuasive. If it included the above points and clearly compared the law situation of two cities, this argument would have been more thorough and convincing.



AWA ESSAYS: Analyze Issues
ESSAY QUESTION:
"Since no business can be all things at once, companies that specialize in one product or service are more efficient than those that offer a diverse product mix."

From your perspective, how accurate is the above statement? Support your position with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

YOUR RESPONSE:
Since no business can be all things at once, companies that specialize in one product or service are more efficient than those that offer a diverse product mix. Even though, this statement holds true for many cases, but the generalization of this opinion would not be true. It is bigger challenge for multiproduct companies to be efficient, but the possibility cannot be denied

A company that specializes in one product can be very efficient, because it is easy to do the market analysis and research for one product than many products. Also consumers associate that company to a particular brand and prefers them to the companies that sell many products, because such companies fail to associate themselves with a particular brand. For example, Apple, leading manufacturer of smartphones, has established itself into digital media devices and even though its products are costlier, sales figures show that consumers heavily trust this brand and prefer Apple to other brands.

In an another example, Microsoft, which is leading seller of Operating systems worldwide, has been very efficiently controlling Operating system market with careful market analysis and releasing new versions from Windows95 to Windows7 by understanding technology and customer requirements and therefore maintaining customer trust. But few years earlier microsoft entered into search engine business with its product "Bing". And since then this particular division of Microsoft is into loss and customers have not been able to shift from google to microsoft's Bing, even after 5 years of its launch. The level of research Microsoft has done in Operating systems business is much more than the search engine business.

On the other habd, company like TATA, which was mainly known for its motor business in India, Tata Motors, Now has been successful in launching several products and is the market leader today in Watches, Hotel business, Hair desiners, Small and large segment vehicles, Consulting services, etc.. The yearly profits have also been consistently increasing for TATA in recent years.

Therefore, it is easy for companies that sell one product to be efficient, since they can effectively complete market analysis and understand consumer requirements. But for multi-product companies, even though not impossible, it is a bigger challenge and they require much more resources to be more efficient.

Thanks and Regards,
Ankur

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, thanks for posting your essays! Just an FYI that instructors don't grade or give feedback on essays (see the forum guidelines for details).

But I certainly hope other community members respond. Also, if you're in our class, you'll have an opportunity to get essays graded and get written feedback during the course (after class 6). Finally, you can get essays graded by GMAT Write (the official essay grading service from the makers of the exam) - they'll both grade the essays and provide feedback as to how to improve (for a fee). For details and pricing, go to www.mba.com and search for GMAT Write.