A sample question from Analysis of argument section :
The following appeared as a part of an advertisement for Adams, who is seeking reelection as governor:
“Re-elect Adams and you will be voting for proven leadership in improving the state’s economy. Over the past year alone, 70 percent of the state’s workers have had increases in their wages, 5,000 new jobs have been created, and six corporations have located their headquarters here. Most of the respondents in a recent poll said they believed that the economy is likely to continue to improve if Adams is re-elected. Adams’s opponent, Zebulon, would lead our state in the wrong direction, because Zebulon disagrees with many of Adams’s economic policies.”
Discuss how logically convincing you find this argument. In your discussion, you should analyze the argument's line of reasoning and use of evidence. It may be appropriate in your critique to call into question certain assumptions underlying the argument and/or to indicate what evidence might weaken or strengthen the argument. It may also be appropriate to discuss how you would alter the argument to make it more convincing and/or discuss what additional evidence, if any, would aid in evaluating the argument. (Taken from mba.com’s official question pool.)
The Analysis of argument section tests your ability to bring out the logical inconsistencies in the given argument, simultaneously testing your skills in three dimensions: critical, analytical and writing. The sample question above is clearly distributed in two parts, first the argument and then the directive. The argument gives you the base for analysis while the directive tells you what to do with the paragraph quoted above. Once again the structuring details discussed in Analysis of Issue post remains to be the same. Also plotting out examples continues to help here also as it did in Analysis of Issue.
There are however some differences from the Issue section, First one being you are not supposed to take sides here. You just have to examine the post in question like a “Wise” critic. Do not try to prove the author wrong or right, all you need to do is just point out the unsubstantiated facts and anecdotes plotted out by the author and then back up your arguments with examples. Don’t worry, in general the questions that appear for this section has cases where author has made some assumptions. All you need to do is feed on them.
Now Lets start preparing:
1. I hope you have set aside adequate time for preparing for this section. Anyways, follow this link to EssayEdge website. Of all the sites available I found it to be most useful. The website covers the main features to be covered for Analysis of Argument section, along with the timings. The link is as follows: Game Plan for Analysis of Argument.
2. This done, you may now find the sample essay. What’s the most striking thing here is there are hardly any conflicts between the suggestions given above and the sample here.
3. Still, analyse the essay from length perspective, example perspective, structure and itsconsistency with the suggestions given in Essay edge section. This exercise will help the suggestions sink in.
4. This done, you can goo through the official question pool. But then don’t start preparing answers for each of them. This is just to give you an idea of what to look out for while researching.
5. Yes now comes the researching part. Try to find the generic examples from Google. You will be required to fit and quote them in the essay.
6. Start practicing at least one or two essay under timed mode.
As usual, this post too is not my brainchild, rather it is a product of rigorous research work. Following are the links of the site that I rate best (Even Google does so!!!). Other than the sites linked above , I recommend Rediff page for some more tips.
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