新gre-argument50 失眠

a273007862 · 发表于 2012-1-31 15:40:50

50 An ancient, traditional remedy for insomnia—the scent of lavender flowers—has now been proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored electronically. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. At the beginning of the second week, the volunteers discontinued their sleeping medication. During that week, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. Therefore, the study proves that lavender cures insomnia within a short period of time.

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

WORDS: 445

The argument, based on unfounded assumption and dubious evidence, lays a claim that the scent of lavender flowers has been proved effective to cure insomnia recently. To bolster this recommendation, the writer advocates that the result of a survey made by 30 volunteers can illustrate this method is useful. Nevertheless, from a logical perspective, the argument is in effect hardly convincing due to several critical flaws after a close scrutiny, albeit it appears credible at a cursory glance.

In the first place, whether these 30-volunteer samples are enough to draw this conclusion. In this situation, the author only take 30 volunteers into account. Lacking such evidence that how these volunteers are chosen and why select 30 volunteers. It is likely that most of them are older people with serious insomnia. Thus, the writer 's reasoning is definitely flawed unless the author can convince me that how to conduct the numbers of volunteers.

In the second place, even if the 30 volunteers are random samplings and it is enough to verify this conclusion, this argument also remains ill-conceived. To illustrate this point clearly, the writer take a three-weeks survey as an example. At the first two weeks, the volunteers slept more tired, however, at the third week, the volunteers slept longer than before. The argument rests on the further assumption that the meaning of feeling tired equals to the words sleeping longer. Therefore, the writer misleads tired into longer and there is no enough evidence to verify if these two concepts are similar meanings.

Before I come to my conclusion, it is necessary to point out the last flaw involved in this argument. Even if the evident turns out to supporting the foregoing provisos, the writer just simply come to the conclusion that in the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. However, the author fails to offer evidence to substantiate this assumption. It is possible that contributing to the first two week sleeping, the volunteers are used to living there. If this is the case, the recommendation will destroy. Hence, without ruling out or accounting for these and other assumptions, the author could not bolster this conclusion.

To sum up, it is precipitous to jump to the conclusion for author that lavender flowers is useful to those insomnia people. In order to draw an effective conclusion, the writer ought to reason more convincingly, take every consideration into account, and provide more statistics evidence showing. Therefore, if the argument had better evaluated the conclusion, I would need more information about how to choose these volunteers and about the survey if ruling out the situation in a familiar rooms.

lukebrehm · 发表于 2012-1-31 22:56:48

The argument, based on unfounded assumption and dubious evidence, lays a claim that the scent of lavender flowers has been proved effective to cure insomnia ~~recently~~. To bolster this recommendation, the writer advocates that the result of a survey made by 30 volunteers can illustrate this method is useful. Nevertheless, from a logical perspective, the argument is in effect hardly convincing due to several critical flaws ~~after a close scrutiny~~, albeit it appears credible at a cursory glance.

In the first place, ~~whether~~ are these 30-volunteer samples are enough to draw this conclusion? In this situation, the author only take 30 volunteers into account. Lacking ~~such~~ evidence ~~that~~ on how these volunteers ~~are~~ were chosen and why they selected 30 volunteers. It is likely that most of them are older people with serious insomnia (it doesn't make any sense to me why this has anything to do with it). Thus, the writer 's reasoning is definitely flawed unless the author can convince me that how to conduct the numbers of volunteers. -- this last sentence is very unclear and I don't believe that you have a very good argument in this second paragraph at all. It just seems like you're trying to have more words...

In the second place, even if the 30 volunteers are random samplings and it is enough to verify this conclusion, this argument ~~also~~ still remains ill-conceived. To illustrate this point clearly, the writer takes a three-weeks survey as an example. At The first two weeks, the volunteers slept and were tired, however, at by the third week, the volunteers slept longer and sounder than before. The argument rests on the further assumption that the meaning of feeling tired equals to the words sleeping longer (not phrased clearly). Therefore, the writer misleads tired into longer (he actually misleads longer into less-tired, they were tired before but since they slept longer in the third week he assumes that they were less-tired) and there is no not enough evidence to verify if these two concepts ~~are~~ have similar meanings.

Hope this helps some... Blessings

[argument] 新gre-argument50 失眠

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