Announcement by Publisher of The Mercury GMAT AWA Essays

byRituparna Nath Content Writer at Study Abroad Exams

Announcement by Publisher of The Mercury GMAT AWA Essay is an argumentative essay. This sample consists of one sample answer. The task requires the candidates to provide a tentative and argumentative answer to the question. The sample answers comprise two parts: Introduction and body. The introduction is a brief description of the topic. The body contains argumentative statements and tentative answers to support the test-taker's perspective.

GMAT AWA examines the test taker’s ability to analyze, critically think, and put their own views in an essay in 30 minutes time. Candidates need to assess and find the faults in their assumptions. The process of checking the GMAT analytical score is based on a grading scale of 1-6 in half-point increments. To increase the GMAT AWA score, practicing from GMAT analytical writing practice papers is necessary.

Topic:

The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper:

“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.”

Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.

Sample Essay:

The above statement made by the publisher of The Mercury which is a weekly newspaper is majorly based on vague and baseless points. The publisher of the weekly newspaper, The Mercury has stated how their competitor The Bugle is gaining market support because of their reduced prices. Mercury’s publisher has claimed to have lost 10,000 readers because of The Bugle’s pricing structure. So to reach the helm, The Mercury has decided to curtail their prices till the time they reach equal footing with The Bugle. They have decided to keep on with the lowered prices till the circulation reaches the former grounds. The argument is completely based on assumptions that are baseless.

The utmost factor that the author has completely ignored is providing the evidence that The Mercury’s circulation has declined only because of The Bugle’s lower price. They have assumed that the reason is the low price, but they have ignored the other plausible reasons that could affect the circulation. A very conceivable factor can be the shift of readers from newspapers to the internet and social media. It is pretty evident that readers are mostly glued to their phones these days because of work or studies or other purposes. They mostly get glimpses of the latest news within a flick of the moment through these platforms. Instead of waiting for the newspaper to receive recent news a day after, they access the internet for that. Another reason can be the changes in the newspaper format or the presence of aggressive politics in many newspapers. There can be different reasons for this change, and the author’s claim of the low price to be the only source is absurd.

The second and very conspicuous factor that the author has completely let go of is, a reduction in the price of the newspaper is not always a proper marketing strategy. Most people have a notion of not purchasing lower-priced goods because they consider them to be of lower quality. Take for instance the Nano car which is the cheapest car in the world. When renowned business magazines conducted a survey to know people’s mindset about purchasing the Nano car, the response was quite negative. Most people stated that they would not go for it since it symbolizes low status. Therefore, The Mercury’s decision of lowering the price only to beat the competition of The Bugle is not a solid proof plan. When they find The Mercury's price has dwindled, it will raise a question in the buyer’s mind.

Lastly, The Mercury has not clearly stated the fact about how lowering the price would increase their circulation and as a result raise the advertisements as well. Higher the circulation, higher the advertisement is a notion that is only acceptable in face values but not in real-time. But in reality, advertisers will only pitch for newspapers having a higher reach in terms of demography or customer base that will develop their business. But if The Mercury lowers its prices, and eventually sees a loss of customer base, then there will be no circulation or advertisement. The author lacks farsightedness, as is evident from these statements.

To conclude, it can be said that the author lacks vision and information regarding many things and the whole plan is based on an assumption. The author needs to work on finding relevant facts, and future strategies instead of just assuming that a cutting down of cost will again pull them up.

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