GRE Argument Task — Magoosh Mock 4
The following appeared as part of the Dean’s newsletter:
“The University of Wabash is considering a community service requirement for all undergraduate and graduate students. We believe that the objective of any university is to produce well-rounded and charitable members of society. The proposed graduation requirement would be to complete at least 8 hours of unpaid community service per month for a total of 9 months. The Dean’s office will maintain a list of approved local charities on its website with contact information. This is a fantastic opportunity for students to give back to the community and gain real-world working experience. Most importantly, local charities in need will receive the help that they need to continue their efforts.”
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The argument claims that the local charities in need will be greatly benefited from the mandatory community service activities. Although the author mentions about the prospect of local charities to be part of the program through the Dean’s office website, we are not provided with any concrete connection between the students choosing charities and those charities being the most in need. Moreover, the argument lacks evidence and reasoning on whether these activities will make the students well-rounded. Thus, the validity of the argument lies on several unstated assumptions that are scrutinized in the following paragraphs.
The author assumes that being well-rounded depends on the student’s engagement in community service. But we are not provided with any evidence or historical data to assess its validity. Moreover, we are deprived of the data of students who are engaging in community service prior to making it mandatory. For example, there could be a significant number of students already performing charitable activities. In that case, the proposed mandatory service will only impact a handful of students. Furthermore, the absence of evidence regarding the engagement of community service and the correlation to being a well-rounded student, leaves room for questioning the validity of the argument. In order to justify this correlation, the author needs to provide sufficient information regarding the prospect of community service being a dominant factor in molding the student as well-rounded.
The assumption that the 8 hours per month for 9 months is not backed up by any study or logical reasoning. It seems the University authorities generated these random numbers out of thin air. We do not know whether this duration of community service will actually benefit the student. Since we are not provided with any information illustrating that a certain duration of charitable activity is enough to make a student well-rounded, this assumption is unjustified, thus leaving the argument unfounded. In order to establish the validity of this duration, the author needs to provide evidence or cite a research study which claims the duration is sufficient to bring forth the intended results.
Furthermore, the argument rests on the assumption that the local charities are in need and thus they will be greatly benefited from this program. But we are deprived of any information of these local charities. For example, what percentage of these charities are in need? Will the students be able to mitigate their problems? Most importantly, we do not know whether the students have the necessary skilset that could solve the problems of these charities. These questions need to be addressed in order to solidify the claim that the charities will be benefited from the students’ engagement.
Additionally, the proposed program claims to maintain a website for the local charities which would be approved by the authority. The argument rests on the assumption that the charities are willing to sign up on the website for this program. There is the possibility that the charities are already having more than enough volunteers from other universities or similar institutions in the area. In that case, the charities are not in need of more manpower. Thus they might not want to sign up. In order to justify the argument, the author should cite enough data.
