Writing Feedback / 'consumption of seafood dishes in Bay City' - GRE Argumentative [4]

"A recent sales study indicates that consumption of seafood dishes in Bay City restaurants has increased by 30 percent during the past five years. Yet there are no currently operating city restaurants whose specialty is seafood. Moreover, the majority of families in Bay City are two-income families, and a nationwide study has shown that such families eat significantly fewer home-cooked meals than they did a decade ago but at the same time express more concern about healthful eating. Therefore, the new Captain Seafood restaurant that specializes in seafood should be quite popular and profitable.

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be addressed in order to decide whether the conclusion and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to the questions would help to evaluate the conclusion."

In the letter, the writer recommends that establishing a new restaurant that specialized in seafood could be highly remunerative. While, the argument rests on a series of unsubstantiated assumptions which each could be questioned in one or another way, therefore is unpersuasive as it stands.

The first assumption in this argument beg the question of why the writers believes that increased rate of seafood dishes unveil the fact that the Bay City Dwellers are into such food? However, there is no evidence to show that this is the case. As a likely, maybe due to an influx of temporary immigrants who are interested in seafood dishes, the rate of ordering such dishes has boosted. Also, it is probable that the quality of other dishes has diminished and people had to consume seafood; although, it is not of their favorite. Without ruling out these or other alternative explanation the writer cannot defend the conclusion.

In addition, this question may arise: Is the research that shows two-incomes families would definitely rather fewer home cooked valid and dependable? Emphatically no, because no evidence is rendered to detect that how many people have participated in the study. Furthermore, this question should be replied that if the sample used has represented the overall population of Bay City in all terms of sex, social class and age. Without knowing the responses of such questions the findings of the study are neither valid nor reliable without reservation.

Even assuming that the consumption of seafood dishes has soared, the argument still begs the question that if it is assumed that the things remain the same over past five years. Nevertheless, it is possible that economic recession is to happen due to malfunction of its official authorities; thus the populace is to refrain from consuming high-priced food, especially seafood in not too distant future.

In sum, close scrutiny of the argument unveils that it is highly unconvincing. To bolster it, the writer should let us know that why there is no available operating seafood restaurant in Bay City? As a result, many questions need to be answered to make the argument convincing.

Thank you very much for your help.
Mahsa Ghaffari

Writing Feedback / 'self-satisfaction' - GRE:True success can be measured [3]

"True success can be measured primarily in terms of the goals one sets for oneself."

The author asserts that the real success can be measured based on the goals that individuals set for themselves. Although, I agree with this assertion to some extent, the terms of "true success" and its ways of measurement needs to further discussion.

There is no denying that evaluation of a real success is highly depends on self-satisfaction. In this regard, Bill Gates is a suitable example of a man with great dreams. During the time he was studying computer programming at university, he has been interested to be a professional engineer, although, his main goal was to establish his own company and make profit. He decided to drop out the Harvard University and found his own company. At this time, his friends embark on criticizing his decision, but he insisted on his determination; and now, Bill Gates is the one who inaugurate in a new era of computer software and many high-graduated professional engineers are willing to be his client. He has reached to the zenith of success by following his goals and aims.

On the other hand, what would happen if the primarily way of success measurement sets as personal preference? First of all, consider a team work, in which a member prefers to circumvent problems rather than solve them. Although, in this case, that member group feels satisfaction with themselves, other members have to compensate his or her defect to assist in achieving the main goal of the team work. In fact, it does not yield to actual success; however, indolent member could get the desired results. Hence, such performance by no means deserved to be called a true success. Secondly, although I understand the people who believe that personal satisfaction should be given precedence in measurement of achievement, in my view, in order to measure the authentic level of success, consideration of the byproducts and side-effects of each performance is of great importance. A drug dealer example will best suffice this perspective. Drug dealers need to make a vulnerable group, such as teenagers, addict to use drugs. For this purpose, most street-level drug dealer embark on selling drugs in law-cost; after a while, when their customers addict, they sell drugs with the real cost. Thus, the needs and goals of drug dealers are fulfilled; however, its serious repercussions would be on the burden of society for a long time. Therefore, only personal satisfaction should not be chosen as neither the best nor the primarily criterion of the measurement of success.

Taking everything into consideration, to achieve in life, self-satisfaction plays an important role. However, it is neither the only not the primarily way of successful measurement at all. In other worlds, all negative and positive consequence of a performance as well as its side-effect should be evaluated as well to clarify the real level of a true success.

Dear friends,
I would be so grateful if you could help me to use more complex vocabulary instead of words I used in my essay, and more complex phrases.

Thanks for your help.
- Mahsa Ghaffari