A pet food company recalled 4 million pounds of pet food in response to complaints that pets that had consumed the food experienced vomiting, lethargy, and other signs of illness. After the recall, the pet food company tested samples from the recalled food and determined that all chemicals found in the food were chemicals that are approved for use in pet food. Thus, the recalled food was not responsible for these symptoms, and the company should not devote further resources to the investigation.
The issue here is of a pet food company who has had complaints from the owners of the pets regarding the edibility of the pet food it sells. Signs like vomiting and lethargy have been experienced by the pets when the food was consumed. The company claims that the recalled food was tested and found to be containing items as prescribed in the standards laid down. Hence the company thinks that they must not devote any further resources to investigate it. The argument is flawed on account of the following reasons.
First, the company cannot declare the pet food as safe and edible without studying the effect of the compounds found in the pet food on all the common breeds of the pet. It is quite possible that some breeds may not have experienced any ill effects after consumption of the pet food and only specific breeds had the issue.
Secondly, the company must also study the effect of taking the pet food before, after or with certain other kinds of food that the pets may have. It assumes here that the approved chemicals do not react with any kind of other foods.
Thirdly, here the company itself has tested the pet food. It must be tested by an independent agency since this agency might be able to find certain harmful chemicals which the company may not have the facilities to find.
Fourth, the samples size that the company tested may be small to represent the entire population in which case if the company tests a wide variety of samples, they might find it contains some harmful chemicals.
Fifth, the company tests the food for chemicals only. It is possible that the pet food may contain micro-organisms-bacteria or viruses that may have caused the symptoms of the illness. It must study the effect of storage on the pet food to ascertain that the symptoms were not due to consumption of their pet food.
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- not OK
argument 4 -- OK
argument 5 -- not OK
----------------
This is the sample essay:
http://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/pet-food-company-re…
--------------------------
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 323 350
No. of Characters: 1475 1500
No. of Different Words: 143 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.239 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.567 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.487 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 93 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 67 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 38 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 24 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.533 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.229 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.415 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.651 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.136 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5