GRE Argument Topic 155

NOTE: The above topic has wording similar to Argument Tasks 34 and 158 of this Website. However, if you read carefully you will notice that the topic and the task instructions are different. Hence, it is very important to read the topic as well as its instructions completely before you start to write your response.

Sample 1:

Based on a study that links beneficia with a reduction in cold reports and the fact that colds are the most commonly cited reason for absenteeism, the writers of the memo predict that daily beneficia consumption would dramatically reduce absenteeism in schools and workplaces. As a symbol of medical authority, the West Meria Public Health Council needs to be careful when evaluating proposals that might have an impact on people’s health. Before making a dietary recommendation, the Public Health Council needs to take into consideration if there are any side effects of the plant’s consumption, whether school and workplace absenteeism is serious enough to warrant such a change and if the correlation between beneficia and cold reduction is valid.

When making their prediction, the authors of the memo assume that school and workplace absenteeism is mostly due to colds. The first question that comes to mind in this instance is what percentage of absenteeism is due to colds. If the overall percentage is low, even if colds are the most cited reason for absenteeism, reducing the number of colds will only have a minimum impact on the overall workplace and school attendance. However, should colds prove to be a significant cause of absences, then the author’s prediction of dramatically reduced absenteeism would be strengthened provided that beneficia nutritional supplements can be used to prevent colds.

The authors also assume that people’s reports accurately reflect the cause of absence. In this case it becomes important to know how many people give the real reason for their school or workplace absenteeism. Since illness is less likely to bring admonitions from a teacher or employer, it is possible that student and employees alike would be more likely to report a cold as a reason for their absence, instead of the real cause. If that were the case and most people would wrongly state having a cold as a day for skipping work or school, then consuming a plant that is supposed to boost the immune system would do nothing in terms of drastically decreasing absenteeism. Should people give truthful accounts of their reasons for missing work or school then the author’s argument that absenteeism is mostly due to colds would be strengthened. Provided that the consumption of beneficia is effective in preventing colds, then the authors’ recommendation for daily use of the nutritional supplements derived from the plant is likely to have a significant effect on school and workplace presence.

Another line of thought used by the authors to strengthen their claim about beneficia consumption is that the number of doctor visits in regards to colds indicates the actual population health. When evaluating this claim, the West Meria Public Health Council should consider what percentage of the town’s people visit the doctor when they have a cold. In modern days colds are often not considered a serious enough reason to go to the doctor, especially if the consultation comes with a fee. Instead, a lot of people could take ‘over-the-counter’ meds and treat themselves. If that were the case in East Meria also and people would rarely visit the doctor if they had a cold, then the number of doctor visits would not really be able to reflect the population’s health. Furthermore, it could also mean that beneficia consumption has no effect in regards to the treatment of colds, in which case introducing nutritional supplement derived from the plant in West Meria would do nothing to decrease school and workplace absenteeism. Should people prove to always go to the doctor when they have a cold then that fact would strengthen the authors’ argument that doctor visits reflect the condition of the population. However, their main claim that beneficia nutritional supplements consumption would decrease school and workplace absenteeism would only be marginally bolstered, as the results would still depend on whether or not the number of doctor visits in East Meria is due to using the plant.

Another question naturally arises from this line of thought, namely what was the number of doctor visits in East Meria before beneficia consumption. Answering this question would reveal whether the number of doctor visits is correlated with beneficia consumption or not. If people went just as much or even less to the doctor for cold treatments before they started eating beneficia, then the author’s claim that daily consumption of nutritional supplements derived from the plant would have a drastic effect on absenteeism would be weakened. On the other hand, if the reverse would prove to be true and people would have had far more doctor visits for colds related reasons in the past, then it would become more likely that using beneficia nutritional supplements would be able to prevent colds. School and workplace presence would still be dependent on whether or not people give truthful accounts for their reasons for cutting class or skipping work.

When claiming that beneficia consumption was responsible for the reduction of colds in East Meria, the authors of the memo assume that there were no external factors that could have contributed to that result. Given that more people like to self-medicate nowadays, it becomes important to know if the people of East Meria use any other drugs that could have been responsible for the reduction in the number of colds. If the town’s inhabitants make use of other cold prevention or treatment medicine like vitamins and paracetamol based drugs, then it becomes less likely that the low number of doctor visits is solely due to beneficia consumption. Should the opposite be true, and the East Meria citizens were to use few if any drugs that could interfere with the results, the authors of the memo could claim with a greater degree of certainty that the plant is responsible for the reduction of colds.

Making diet changes that are bound to affect people’s health come at a risk. Before issuing their predictions, the authors of the memo should first consider whether there are any side effects to beneficia consumption and what is the plant’s toxicity level. If there are no side effects to eating beneficia, then the author’s claims are not likely to be affected, however, should the plant prove to have harmful side effects then increased beneficia consumption could lead to even more absenteeism. In the end, the risks would outweigh the benefits and the town’s inhabitants would stop taking the nutritional supplements based on the plant. In addition to that, the Public Health Council might face scorn for having proposed the measure in the first place. The same thing would happen if beneficia would have a low toxicity level, since people would only be able to consume very small quantities before they would get sick. If the reverse were true, then the authors of the memo could safely recommend eating nutritional supplements derived from the plant, however that would have no bearing on its efficiency in curing colds.

When predicting that daily consumption of nutritional supplements derived from beneficia will help prevent or reduce the number of colds, the authors of the memo assume that the properties of the plant would be preserved through the process of making it into a dietary supplement. The question that comes to mind in that instance is just how similar are the chemical properties of beneficia nutritional supplements to those of the plant itself. The process of making a herbal based nutritional supplement often involves radical procedures such as tincturing, vacuum distillation, freeze drying and other measures of creating the plant extract. If, after this process, the chemical properties of the nutritional supplements are significantly altered from those of the plant from which they are derived, then it becomes highly likely that the dietary supplements will not have the same effects as the plant. This would significantly weaken the claim that daily use of benefitia nutritional supplements would dramatically reduce absenteeism in schools and workplaces. However, if benefitia and the dietary supplements derived from it were to share the same chemical properties, it would strengthen the claim that daily consumption of the supplements would help reduce school and workplace absenteeism, provided that eating beneficia is an effective cold prevention method.

All in all, measures that affect the public health are not to be taken lightly. The authors of the memo should properly investigate the causes of workplace absenteeism and the relationship between beneficia and the number of colds before they suggest measure that might prove to be ineffective.