The following appeared in a newspaper article about law firms in the city of Megalopolis. "in Megalopolis, the number of law school graduates who went to work for large, corporate firms declined by 15% over the last three years, whereas an increasing num

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The following appeared in a newspaper article about law firms in the city of Megalopolis.

"in Megalopolis, the number of law school graduates who went to work for large, corporate firms declined by 15% over the last three years, whereas an increasing number of graduates took jobs at small, general practice firms. even though large firms usually offer much higher salaries, law school graduates are choosing to work for the smaller firms most likely because they experience greater job satisfaction at smaller firms. in a survey of first-year students at a leading law school, most agreed with the statement that earning a high salary was less important to them than job satisfaction. this finding suggests that the large, corporate firms of Megalopolis will need to offer graduates more benefits and incentives and reduce the number of hours they must work."

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.

In this article, the author recommends the large, corporate firms of Megalopolis to offer graduates more benefits and incentives and reduce the number of hours they must work. To support this recommendation, the author points out that, since the law school graduates experience greater job satisfaction, they prefer to work for the smaller firms even though large firms usually offer much higher salaries. He also cites a survey regarding first-year students at a leading law school that indicates, for them, job satisfaction was more important than earning a high salary. Close scrutiny of each of these supporting evidences, however, reveals that none of them lends credible support to the recommendation.

First and foremost, the argument rests on the unsubstantiated assumption that the students preference to work for small, general practice firms is responsible for the 15% decline in the number of students who went to work for the large, corporate firms over the last three years. However, the writer of the argument fails to offer any evidence that this is the case. It is entirely possible that other factors caused the decline. Perhaps, in the last three years less job positions were available for the students. Since the article fails to account for this and other possible scenarios, the article’s author cannot make any sound recommendation for the large, corporate firms of Megalopolis to offer more benefits and incentives for the graduates.

Secondly, the term “job satisfaction” is ambiguous, in my opinion. One must admit that everyone defines job satisfaction distinctively; for instance, some students are satisfied with their job if they receive a high salary. On the other hand, some others define job satisfaction as having less workload or friendly colleagues and milieu. If so, this further undermines the author’s recommendation in prescribing any course of action to recompense the 15% decline due to vocational preferences of graduates.

As for the survey that the article cites, it is unreasonable to draw any conclusion about the entire law school graduates in the city of Megalopolis based on the statistics about only the first-years students. Depending on the number of first-years students and their job preferences, it is undeniably possible that the first-years students were not representative of the law school graduates. If this is the case, the recommendation might amount to poor advice for the large, corporate firms of Megalopolis.

In sum, the argument is logically flawed and therefore unconvincing as it stands. To strengthen it, the author must either account for other possible reasons for the 15% decline in the number of students who preferred to work for large, corporate firms, or supply persuasive evidence that the first-years student were representative of the total law school graduates. To better assess the recommendation, I need to know whether all law school students define “job satisfaction” as less working hours.

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Average: 4 (2 votes)
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Comments

argument 1 -- not OK

argument 2 -- not OK

argument 3 -- OK
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flaws:
In GRE, we have to accept all data or evidence are true. It is important to find out loopholes behind surveys or studies. Loopholes mean that we accept all surveys told are true, but there are some conditions applied, for example:

It works for time A (10 years ago), but it doesn't mean it works for time B (nowadays).

It works for location A (a city, community, nation), but it doesn't mean it works for location B (another city, community, nation).

It works for people A (a manager), but it doesn't mean it works for people B (a worker).

It works for event A (one event, project... ), but it doesn't mean it works for event B (another event, project...).

for example:
'large, corporate firms declined by 15% over the last three years, whereas an increasing number of graduates
took jobs at small, general practice firms' not because of job satisfaction, but because of economy recession globally.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: ? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 469 350
No. of Characters: 2449 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.654 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.222 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.964 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 178 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 136 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 106 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.684 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.513 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.348 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.551 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5