Pirouettes Ballet School is the clear choice for any child. Of all the dance schools in Elmtown, Pirouettes has the most intensive program, and our teachers have danced in the most prestigious ballet companies all over the world. Many of our students have

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Pirouettes Ballet School is the clear choice for any child. Of all the dance schools in Elmtown, Pirouettes has the most intensive program, and our teachers have danced in the most prestigious ballet companies all over the world. Many of our students have gone on to become professional dancers with top dance companies.

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

Pirouettes Ballet School may certainly be the choice of school for many children and parents. However, there isn't a strong argumentation towards such a recommendation that indicate that the school is certainly the clear choice for any child. The argument makes many egregious mistakes in forming its recommendation, like the lack of specificity in information and assumptions regarding the children and a lack of quantification in its descriptions of the school.

The first question that would need to be answered in order to determine if the recommendation made is the reasonable conclusion is whether the children in question even want to be dancers. The recommendation is that Pirouettes is the clear choice of any child, the word "any" here being the obvious and considerable flaw. The recommendation doesn't just mention "children being dancers", but it broadly states it about any child. In order for the school to to be the clear choice, the children and parents would have to assist in answering whether the children even want to dance. Because not every child will want to dance, then the recommendation isn't sound. If the children in question did want to dance, though, then the question of their location would need to be asked. Pirouettes is mentioned as being in Elmtown, but not "any" child lives in Elmtown. Maybe it's the case that many children who are aspiring dancers don't even live anywhere near Elmtown, and so the claim that the school is a "clear" choice for these children would be unsound if it turned out that the children didn't live near there, or even close by.

Another question revolving the children that needs to be answered in in relation to their actual wants and abilities. Pirouettes is described as being the "most" intensive. The argument makes the assumption that the program being the most intensive is a positive. In reality, maybe many children and their parents do not want such an intensive school. Perhaps they have physical or mental disabilities that would prevent them from being successful in what, is assumed, to be a rigorous program. The question of what the children and parents wanted would need to be answered, because if they don't want such an intensive program, then again the school would not be the "clear" choice for them. Directly connected to how the word "intensive" is used then, the word "most" precedes it. The school is not being judged by itself, but in comparison to other dance schools in Elmtown. In reality, perhaps none of the other dance school are at all intensive, and it's only by comparison to those schools that this school looks like it would be. In reality, it really may not be and so, for those children and parents that do want such a program, it would not be the "clear" choice. The question as to how intensive the other schools are would need to be assessed in order to determine how intensive (or not) Pirouettes is.

The quantification in the argument is also a major flaw that intervenes with how strong the recommendation is. It mentions that many of the school's students have gone on to be professional dancers, but it doesn't specify how large "many" in this case is. Maybe "many" is referring to 60% of all of the students who have graduated from the school. However, maybe "many" is about thirty students, out of a 1000 who have attended the school. In this case, the percentage is definitely small and not at all very encouraging as to the statement that the argument makes. These statistics would need to be gathered, and depending on how large they were, would affect the argument greatly. The argument also mentions that the school's teachers have danced in the most prestigious ballet companies all over the world, but again, how many teachers of the entire group achieved this? Perhaps about ten teachers did, out of maybe a hundred, or three out of fifty. Again, this question of the actual statistics would need to be gathered. The argument is also trying to make a conclusion about the teachers and how dancing in such companies is a bigger draw for children and their parents, but how do we know that they care at all about where the teachers have danced? We don't. The argument about the teachers would not have any bearing if the children and parents did not care.

In reality, Pirouettes may actually be a clear choice of school for many children: those who are aspiring dancers, those whose parents also want them to be in intensive programs (granted, if the program was actually intensive itself and not just in comparison to other schools), and those children who wanted to be successful, and their parents wanted it to. If a large percentage of students also became professional dancers, and the children lived in Elmtown. All of these factors could actually mean that the school is exactly the right fit and the clear choice, but these are a lot of ifs here. The argument as it is, with its many assumptions and generalizations and lack of information, would not provide strong support for such a recommendation.

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argument 1 -- not OK

argument 2 -- not OK

argument 3 -- not OK
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flaws:
You are on the wrong track to do arguments. You can't pick up some words from the text as the loopholes.

Need to analyze the structure of the statement and argue accordingly:

condition 1:
Pirouettes has the most intensive program, and our teachers have danced in the most prestigious ballet companies all over the world.

condition 2:
Many of our students have gone on to become professional dancers with top dance companies.

conclusion:
Pirouettes Ballet School is the clear choice for any child.

read a sample for arguments:
http://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-essays/pirouettes-ballet-school-clear-ch…

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