The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College."To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current

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The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College.

"To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current trends, will double over the next 50 years, thus making existing dormitory space inadequate. Moreover, the average rent for an apartment in our town has risen in recent years. Consequently, students will find it increasingly difficult to afford off-campus housing. Finally, attractive new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham."

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

The director of student housing at Buckingham College (BC) suggests building a number of new dormitories for students. The recommendation is buttressed by several evidences which should be carefully scrutinized in order to gauge the soundness of the conclusion.

Firstly, the writer of the argument asserts that today's enrollment is enhancing and if the pace will be the same over next 50 years, enrollment will be twice as much as it is today. The prediction which is based on today's trend may not lead to the expected results in particular when we have a deal with such a huge time span. a number of local and global factors may affect the future of the DC, for example, if BC is located in the EU or the UK, density of state's population may decrease significantly due to the fact that today a population of these countries are rapidly adged. Moreover, the gamut of subjects and professions which are taught in BC may not be attractive for future generations. In other words, we have many factors which may impact on attractiveness of the college and therefore the author's conclusion is weak.

Even if the number of students who enroll in BC will increase, the author's belief that students will not afford off- campus housing is questionable. Although today many college students struggle to afford renting a flat, the situation may change over time, for example, in the UK a law has been recently endorsed which fixes the size of rent and therefore, the increase of payments for renting off-campus housing will be restricted. Moreover, perhaps a number of new students may be foreigners who reach enough to allow themselves rent apartments or flats. Additionally to it, government may build affordable domiciles for its citizens. In other words, an author's assumption that future students will have difficulties to rent off-campus housing is not warranted.

Finally, the writer maintains that the new dormitories will attract new students. Perhaps a affordable housing is important factor but it cannot be major one. Students go to college to acquire qualification and knowledge, thus they are the main factros for students' choice. Consequently, only new dormitories will not guarantee a stady growth of enrollment.

In conclusion, despite the fact that affordable housing is an important factor for students it is not the only one which will be used by students to draw their decision. Moreover, the situation with enrollment may be altered by a myriad of factors and the difficulties of students with renting off-campus housing is exaggerated. Therefore, the author’s recommendation is unreasonable.

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GMAT/GRE Argument Task

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Hello. This comment is a little bit of topic. May you suggest me several the most difficult arguments for practice? The idea is that not all the issue prompts are equally difficult some of them relatively simple when other prompts are challenging. Perhaps you may help me with this question due to your expertise and knowledge. Thank you for help.

We don't suggest you go difficult ones. The reason is that the questions will come to you from the database randomly and over 90% are normal ones.

You may try this one first and we will see how is your performance:

"A recent study of eighteen rhesus monkeys provides clues as to the effects of birth order on an individual's levels of stimulation. The study showed that in stimulating situations (such as an encounter with an unfamiliar monkey), firstborn infant monkeys produce up to twice as much of the hormone cortisol, which primes the body for increased activity levels, as do their younger siblings. Firstborn humans also produce relatively high levels of cortisol in stimulating situations (such as the return of a parent after an absence). The study also found that during pregnancy, first-time mother monkeys had higher levels of cortisol than did those who had had several offspring."

Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.

Sentence: Students go to college to acquire qualification and knowledge, thus they are the main factros for students' choice.
Error: factros Suggestion: factors

Sentence: Consequently, only new dormitories will not guarantee a stady growth of enrollment.
Error: stady Suggestion: stay

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argument 1 -- not OK. We need to accept Buckingham's enrollment will double over the next 50 years, but the enrollment may be mainly from local students who stay with parents.

argument 2 -- not exactly.

suggested:
it is possible that the average rent has increased not because each of apartments has raised their rent fee but because rents of some luxurious apartments increased significantly. In such a case, rents for non-luxurious apartments might stay constant, so it would be illogical to conclude that many students will opt for living in dormitories.

argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 426 350
No. of Characters: 2138 1500
No. of Different Words: 196 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.543 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.019 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.941 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 161 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.488 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.889 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.555 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.074 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5

Hello, me reader. I do not know your name but I want to say you "thank you" for your patience. I actually appreciate your work and you have greatly helped my to understand the ETS' requirements.

I have a problem with understanding: when I should and should not accept the given material. By default, I accept all data which is given to me BUT some arguments require from me to doubt in it. For example,
http://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/fifteen-years-ago-o…
The second author's argument argues against the writers statement about employers' beliefs. I am not sure that I feel this slight difference. I assume that in this case, the ETS writer's write about someone's opinion and therefore I can argue with it. Is my guess correct.
Thank you.