Rate My GRE Argument Essay

[Rawan]

Hi everybody,

could you please rate my GRE essay in argument essay. I appreciate any help. Thank you in advance.

 

The topic is:

A recent study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that employees with paid sick leave are 28 percent less likely to be involved in a work-related accident than employees who do not receive payment for sick leave. Researchers hypothesize that employees with unpaid sick leave feel pressured to work during time of illness for fear of lack of pay. On-the-job accidents are then spurred by impaired judgment or motor skills due to illness or illness-related medications. The highest-risk occupations, such as construction, showed the highest discrepancy between paid and unpaid leave.

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to determine whether the researchers’ hypothesis is reasonable. Be sure to explain what effects the answers to these questions would have on the validity of the hypothesis.

 

My Response:

 

The Memo is discussing the importance of paid sick-leaves on employee’s safety. It includes that companies that have paid sick-leaves tends to have less related injuries. According to the memo, the non-paid employees will be under economical pressure, so they will work under illness. However, the memo includes no evidences to support this argument, and it doesn't take into account the payment influence on the companies' financial plans.

 

First, the memo is discussing the issue from an employees’ point of view, neglecting the influence it has on the company itself. How is the company affected by such policy? Who will pay the company back for the negative impact of sick employee’s absence? Who will be covering the leaved employee? All the previous questions were not answered in the discussion. On The other hand, the company will be under the pressure of hiring somebody to cover the absent employee work. The memo was so cursory taking the issue from one point of view.

 

Second, most companies have their own policies about sick leaves. Not all sick leaves lay under the same categories. Illness could or could not affect the work required from the employee. There must be a regulation to categorize that. The memo is so generalized about illness types and their influence on the work atmosphere. It assumes that every illness can cause a loss in concentration, leading to a higher injury rate. It should have into account how situations are not always the same. For example, IT employee work will not be affected by a broken leg, unless the company's building is not prepared for handicapped employees,. On the other hand, process engineer who is always moving will, totally, be impaired by such illness. 

 

As it currently stands, the memo claims that non-paid sick leaves will create a higher injury rate for sick employees. It lacks the evidences on how this claims was reached, and other factors in this issue. It needs to clarify its claims and to be more convincing on how it concludes that sick leaves should be paid.

 

[JohnMiltonsStapler]

This is a purely objective evaluation. I will use the ETS criteria and give you a brief rundown of what works and does not work. 

 

Let's get the bad out of the way: the grammar and syntax here is going to hurt your score. I have used the online "score it now" option, and the computer scorer that looks at the essay before a human does is unforgiving with even the slightest grammatical error. 

 

-Word choice in your second sentence should be "concludes" not includes. Be careful about poor word choice. The computer won't catch it, but the grader will. And it can kill an otherwise good essay. It happened to me on the old GRE and likely cost me admittance to a top school that I was otherwise qualified for. 

-Throughout you pluralize 'evidence' into 'evidences.' This is one of the nouns that is never pluralized by the alteration of its ending, there are "pieces of evidence" or simply "evidence." The singular can refer to a plural subject. You also overuse this word. The computer will catch this. 

-Your biggest grammatical problems seem to be with case, and possessives. Always make sure that your subject and verb agree in tense and always make sure that you indicate possessives correctly. 

-Finally, don't use "first" "second" etc at the openers of your paragraphs. It demonstrates to the reader that you lack the ability to think of more creative, and fluid, transitions. 

 

Your stronger area is your second "point." Here you are doing exactly what they ask you to do: identify the underlying assumptions that make the argument flawed and tease out the implications. 

 

To sum it up, if the issue were just the grammar, it is not extensive enough to effect meaning, so in that case you could possible be at a 3 here. But your essay itself is sparse. You need more meat to satisfy the reader and better grammar to satisfy the computer. So at present, the essay stands at a 2. Depending on what kind of program you are applying to, this could be just an eyebrow raiser that will be attenuated by a strong writing sample, or it could be a deal breaker. If you are trying to go into a non-humanties field, try to get up to a 3 or 3.5. If you are looking at the humanities, and I mean this with all sincerity and honesty, you have a long way to go. Often this is the score that they weigh the most, along with the verbal. It demonstrates your ability to construct cogent arguments under pressure and without pre-planning. If you can do this well, it can make an application. Even in a technical field, a 2 could sink you. But you can clearly improve. Work on grammar first. Then do some un timed tests or just answer prompts on your own time. If you PM me I can edit them in a word document for you and I will edit them more closely. I am a writing tutor and teach an ESL class so this stuff is helpful to me in learning to grade and evaluate. 

Edited December 17, 2013 by JohnMiltonsStapler

[Rawan]

Thank you very much for replying to my responce.

Actually, this is my second essay i wrote. I'd love to contact you to help me with poweful outlines.

I am actually an engineering applicant so I am trying to give more effort for the quantitative part of the exam, but I sure want to improve this part too.

[JohnMiltonsStapler]

I would be very happy to help. I will send you a private message with my contact info. 

[Rawan]

ok

thank you very much