You have a limited amount of time to show the business school admissions officers that you can think logically and express yourself in clearly written English. They don’t care how many syllables you can cram into a sentence or how fancy your phrases are. They care that you make sense. Whatever you do, don’t hide beneath a lot of hefty words and abstract language. Make sure that everything you say is clearly written and relevant to the topic. Get in there, state your main points, back them up, and get out. The Kaplan Method for Analytical Writing—along with Kaplan’s recommendations for how much time you should devote to each step of the Method—will help you produce the best essay you’re capable of writing in 30 minutes.
The general instructions for the Argument essay will look like this:
Analytical Writing Assessment Instructions
Analysis of an Argument Essay
Time: 30 Minutes
In this part of the test, you will be asked to write a critical analysis of the argument in the prompt. You are not being asked to give your own views on the topic.
COMPOSING YOUR ESSAY: Before you begin to type, take a little time to look at the argument and plan your essay. Make sure your ideas are organized and clearly stated. Leave some time to read over your essay and make any changes you think are necessary. You will have 30 minutes to write your essay.
ESSAY ASSESSMENT: Qualified graders with varied backgrounds, including experience in business subject areas, will assess the overall quality of your analysis and composition. They will look at how well you:
The instructions on Screen 1 tell you to read the argument, plan your essay before writing it, and leave a little time at the end for review. Sound familiar? The Kaplan Method mirrors these steps. While the prompts for the essay vary, the general directions are always the same. Become familiar with the essay directions now so you don’t waste valuable time reading them on Test Day.
The next screen you go to will contain the specific essay prompt.
Read the argument and the directions that follow it, and write down any ideas that will be helpful in mapping out your essay. Begin writing your essay in the box at the bottom of this screen.
The following appeared as part of a business plan created by a management consultant hired by Comfy Food Restaurant:
“After adding several vegetarian entrees to its dinner menu late last year, Comfy Food experienced a 21 percent increase in the average number of entrees ordered each evening. Furthermore, restaurant reviewers have viewed menu innovations at other dining establishments favorably, writing positive reviews. Therefore, Comfy Food should continue to expand the vegetarian offerings on its menu by replacing several meat entrees with salads, as well as adding meatless appetizers and side dish options. Doing so will allow Comfy Food to gain a competitive advantage over other local restaurants and increase its profits.”
Consider how logical you find this argument. In your essay, be sure to discuss 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 counterpoints might weaken the conclusion. You may also discuss what types 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.
The only part of Screen 2 that will change is the specific prompt, which is in quotation marks. The instructions above and below it will stay the same. Again, practicing with these directions now will mean that you won’t waste time reading them on Test Day.
Analysis of an Argument topics will probably remind you of certain Critical Reasoning questions, in particular Strengthen/Weaken and Evaluate questions. Just as in these Critical Reasoning questions, the writer tries to persuade you of something—her conclusion—by citing some evidence. So look for these two basic components of an argument: a conclusion and supporting evidence. Furthermore, just as in Critical Reasoning, be on the lookout for assumptions—the ways the writer makes the leap from evidence to conclusion. These can often be found in mismatched terms between the evidence and conclusion and in possibilities the author has overlooked.
The question stem instructs you to decide how convincing you find the argument, explain why, and discuss what might improve the argument. Note that there is a right answer here: the argument always has some problems. You want to focus your efforts on finding them, explaining them, and fixing them.
Exactly what are you being asked to do here? Paraphrase the following sentences of the question stem.
Consider how logical you find this argument. In your essay, be sure to discuss the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument.
Translation: Critique the argument. Discuss the ways in which it is not convincing. How and why might the evidence not fully support the conclusion?
For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterpoints might weaken the conclusion. You may also discuss what types 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.
Translation: Spot weak links in the argument and offer constructive modifications that would strengthen them.
Let’s use the Kaplan Method for Analytical Writing on the Analysis of an Argument topic we saw before:
The following appeared as part of a business plan created by a management consultant hired by Comfy Food Restaurant:
“After adding several vegetarian entrees to its dinner menu late last year, Comfy Food experienced a 9 percent increase in the average number of entrees ordered each evening. Furthermore, restaurant reviewers have viewed menu innovations at other dining establishments favorably, writing positive reviews. Therefore, Comfy Food should continue to expand the vegetarian offerings on its menu by replacing several meat entrees with salads, as well as adding meatless appetizers and side dish options. Doing so will allow Comfy Food to gain a competitive advantage over other local restaurants and increase its profits.”
First, identify the conclusion—the point the argument is trying to make. Here, the conclusion is the recommendation in the second sentence:
Comfy Food should continue to expand the vegetarian offerings on its menu by replacing several meat entrees with salads, as well as adding meatless appetizers and side dish options.
Next, identify the evidence—the basis for the conclusion. Here, several pieces of evidence are provided. You might jot them on your notepad like this:
Finally, paraphrase the argument as a whole in your own words: Comfy Foods should increase its selection of vegetarian items because doing so will be good for business.
If you aren’t able to put the argument in your own words, you don’t yet understand it well enough to analyze it sufficiently. Don’t rush this step; you can afford a full 2 minutes if you need it.
Now that you’ve found the conclusion and evidence, think about what assumptions the author makes. What’s wrong with her reasoning? What important questions does she leave unaddressed? Here are the key assumptions this author makes:
You also will need to explain how these assumptions could be false or how the questions reveal weaknesses in the author’s argument. Add counterexamples and reasoning to your notes. The following notes are written out so they can be easily understood by readers of this book, but on Test Day, no one needs to understand your notes but you. So use just enough words to remind yourself of your ideas, and abbreviate wherever possible.
Then think about evidence that would make the argument stronger or more logically sound:
Look over the notes you’ve jotted down. Select the strongest point to be first, the next-strongest to be second, and so on. Two criteria determine whether a point is strong. One is how well you can explain it. If, for example, you aren’t sure how to explain potential inertia in customer behavior, you should use that idea last—if at all. The other is how seriously the weakness undermines the argument’s persuasiveness. If customers have no interest in salads, for example, the argument is in serious trouble.
Then decide how you’ll arrange your points. Follow the Kaplan template. You can just number the ideas you’ve already brainstormed. Here’s one way someone might organize this essay. Note that this person has reorganized the order of ideas from the notes above, and they’ve divided up the third idea—about what drives customer behavior—combining parts of it with two other ideas instead of writing about it in a separate paragraph.
¶ Restate argument and assert that it relies too heavily on assumptions
¶ Assump: increased orders = profits
¶ Assump: reviews will be positive & reviews drive customer behavior
¶ Assump: demand for salads, etc. & menu choices drive customer behavior
¶ Evidence that would strengthen argument
¶ Conclude
Remember, you may not have time to use all your points. Leaving your weakest for last means that if you run short on time, you’ll leave out your weakest point instead of your best.
Here’s another tip: If you’re concerned about running out of time, write a strong concluding sentence that restates your thesis (that in the absence of further evidence, the argument is not persuasive) right after you write your introductory paragraph. After all, you know how your essay will end. Then spend the available time filling in the middle with body paragraphs, without the pressure of needing to leave time to write a clear conclusion.
Begin typing your essay now. Keep in mind the principles of sound writing discussed earlier.
Keep your writing simple and clear. Choose words that you know how to use well. Avoid the temptation to make your writing “sound smarter” with overly complicated sentences or vocabulary that feels awkward.
Keep your eye on the clock and make sure that you don’t run out of time to proofread. If you need to, leave out your last point or two. (Make sure that you include at least two main points.) Let’s pretend that the writer of the following essay had only 6 minutes left on the clock after the third paragraph. She wisely chose neither to rush through her final paragraph nor to skip proofreading. Instead, she left out her point about cost.
The business consultant recommends that Comfy Foods Restaurant change its menu, specifically by replacing some meat entrees with salads and adding other vegetarian options. This strategy will, according to the consultant, give the restaurant an advantage over other area restaurants and be more profitable. Certainly this argument would be compelling if it were credible. However, the argument relies on unsupported assumptions and is therefore unconvincing.
The consultant supports this proposal in part by stating that it will increase the restaurant’s profits. Even if the plan works as intended and Comfy Foods enjoys greater market share and more customers, profits may not follow. A higher volume of food orders will result in higher profits only if the total margin is greater. If these new items cost more to make than the old items, or if the restaurant cannot charge as much for them, or some combination of the two, even greater sales may not lead to greater profits. Unless data are provided to address this issue, the restaurant’s management cannot be sure that this alleged benefit of the plan will come to pass.
Moreover, it is far from certain that customers will respond positively to changes in the menu. The consultant implies that reviewers will write positive reviews after the changes, because they have written positive reviews about changes to the menus at other restaurants. However, no information is provided about what those changes were. Perhaps those restaurants shifted to using more locally sourced, organic ingredients, or perhaps they incorporated items from diverse cuisines into their offerings. Even if those restaurants did begin serving more vegetarian food, perhaps they prepared the food in an exceptionally delicious manner and that is what reviewers responded to—not the change to the menu itself. Finally, there is no evidence that restaurant patrons act on what they read in reviews. They may continue to visit the establishments they know and love, no matter how enticing a review may be. Without knowing more about what factors influence reviews and how reviews influence customer behavior, management should be skeptical of the effects of this plan.
In addition, the consultant assumes that the restaurant’s experience with adding a few unspecified vegetarian entrees to the menu supports the specific recommendation to add salads and non-entree dishes. First, there is no evidence that adding the new entrees actually increased sales of entrees, other than the fact that the two events happened at the same time. Perhaps entree sales would have gone up for some other reason, regardless of the menu change. Second, maybe Comfy Foods customers like hearty bean-and-rice casseroles and will be uninterested in salads. Finally, there is no evidence to support the idea that vegetarian side dishes and appetizers will be well received. Indeed, since the restaurant has already expanded its vegetarian offerings, perhaps customer demand for this food is already being satisfied and further offerings will have no effect.
Comfy Foods management should ask the consultant to provide more data to support her assumptions. A survey of local residents could confirm what people who dine out want to see on restaurant menus and how they decide to visit one restaurant over another. Conversations with restaurant critics or research into dining trends would give more insight into whether the proposed menu changes would garner the positive reviews that the consultant anticipates. A detailed breakdown of costs and prices of current and proposed menu items, at different volumes, would help management determine whether changing the menu would increase profits.
Unfortunately, because the consultant has not provided these types of evidence, management should not rely on her plan to improve the business.
Save a few minutes to go back over your essay and catch any obvious errors or opportunities for improvement. The best way to improve your writing and proofreading skills is practice. When you practice responding to AWA prompts, do so on a computer—but to mimic test conditions, don’t use the automatic spell-check or grammar-check. You can turn off these functions in your browser or word processor settings. Write practice essays using the prompts at the end of this chapter or those provided by the test maker at mba.com. The pool of prompts provided by the test maker contains the actual prompts from which the GMAT will select your essay topic on Test Day.