Hi,

I just solved ETS GRE practice test-1 and here is my response for AWA section. Can someone help me to rate the essay and provide powerful feedback. 15 days left for the actual GRE test.



Issue:

A nation should require all of its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position.

Issue Response:

Foundation of any subject is nothing but the basic root which helps to grow faster and thus to achieve great success in the life. Prompt recommends to the nation that it should require same curriculam for the students before entering into the college life. I agree with the prompt that every student should go through same basics of the curriculam which taught before college life to build basics. However, the requirements of college should also be taken into account before mandating the same curriculam for every students.
To begin with, all students require to go through basics of education, taught into the national curriculam, which helps student for better growth in the life. Strong foundation of any subject are nothing but the roots of the tree which helps it to tackle any difficult condition throughout it's life to be in always standstill condition. For example, a student can go to an engineering field through his college education as per his or her interest toward the engineering field. However, to use the knowledge of engineering into the actual field, some might need basic understanding of the problem and thus the basic knowledge of problem environment to solve it efficiently. It might be very difficult for someone to understand about mathematics unless he or she studied mathematics in the college. Thus, basics of education would help students to make their roots strong and thus achieve great success in the life.
However, while studying basics of education, one should also consider the major field of study before entering into the college according to his or her interest. Interesting field of the college, sometimes, may have prerequisites such as specific courses or subjects which allow students to learn the course efficienctly. For example, if certain college requirement have the requirement of basic language understanding for any particular course, then students may need that language study before entering into the college. Consider the case of Germany, most of the universities mandate basics of German language for the course. In this situation, if national curriculam does not include such kind of basic courses, it will hamper students decision to make according to their interest.
To sum up, it is complex to agree on the recommendation as national curriculam may help to nurture bacis of the education on one side, on the other side requirements of the college need to be understood before mandating students to go through the same national curriculam. Thus, the decision of the requirement of students to go throught same national curriculam is an ambiguous one.



Argument:

The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station.

"Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this period, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have cancelled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand our coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs."

Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

Argument Response:

Memorandum from the business manager recommends to increase time for weather and local news and to reduce time for national news, during late-night news program. To support the recommendation, manager mentioned complaints from the viewrs and the contract cancellation of advertisement decision by local businesses into the news program. However, this argument contains several logical flaws, which render it unconvincing.
Firstly, manager provides the information that their news program has devoted less time to the local & weather news and more time for national news. However, manager has not provided specific time of each type of news and the requirement of people to watch the kind of news during late-night news program. It might be possible that most of the news viewers are interested in either national news during their lazy night time or both as per the requirement. Increasing the time for weather and local news might bore people to watch same news during night which they already know during the day time, reducing the number of news watchers during the late-night news program.
Secondly, manager has not provided details about the complaints received from viewers though they are concerned about the station's covergae of weather and local news. It might be possible that people are complaining about the wrong content of the news and discrepancies in the weather data. For example, local residents feel the hot summer in the city, however local news, sometime, provides that it is raining in the city. Such kind of wrong news affect the originality of the news content and thus may lessen the viewers of the news. Thus, proper evaluation of complaints need to be done before coming on the conclusion.
Thirdly, manager informed that local businesses have recently canceled their advertising contracts with the news agency. However, manager has not provided the actual reasons of cancellation of contracts with the agency. There might be any other news agency which advertise local news in very less cost compares to the agency mentioned. Also, some businesses might be stopped that is why they have chosen to cancel the advertisement contact with the news agency. If above is true, then there will be no advantages for changing time of news for late-night program.
To better evaluate the argument, we need more information such as requirements of people, details of complaints and resons for cancellation of advertisement contracts which would help to make stronger decision without hampering the news agency further. Thus, we cannot reach a holistic conclusion and hence the argument remains unpersuasive.