Please rate my essay from MGMAT Mock exam 5

[steve.tan.chee.wei]

Hi!

For this time, i'm running the GMAT exam in the background and make sure that I've followed the time limit.

I don't think i have many good ideas about this topic so I just try to make it logical as much as i can.

Thanks for reviewing!

Read the statement(s) and the instructions that follow, and then make any notes that will help you plan your response. Begin typing your response in the box at the bottom of the screen.

The following appeared in a medical magazine:
"Art and music have long been understood to have therapeutic effects for individuals who suffer from either physical or mental illnesses. However, most doctors rarely recommend to patients some form of art or music therapy. Instead, doctors focus almost all of their attention on costly drug treatments and invasive procedures that carry serious risks and side-effects. By focusing on these expensive procedures rather than low-cost treatments such as art and music therapy, doctors are doing a disservice to their patients and contributing to the rising cost of health care in the United States."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.

answer:
The argument tries to convey that doctors should recommend art and music therapy as a form of treatment to physical or mental illness and that by by not doing so they are adding to the rising cost of health care in the United States. However the point made is not convincing because they only discuss the issues on a surface level.

Firstly, it is mentioned that art and music have long been understood to have therapeutic effects for individuals who suffer from either physical or mental illness but the effectiveness of such type of treatment is not discussed in details. If art or music therapy is only effective to lessen the effect of the patient's physical or mental illness then the treatment isn't really suitable.

Secondly, the argument continues with doctors often proceed with drug treatment and invasive procedures to treat the patient's illness and that these procedures carry risks and side-effect, however the side effect or risk from treating with art and music therapy is not discussed in the argument as well. For example, certain illness, such as cancer, are time sensitive and by not detecting and acting on them earlier could mean the difference between a minor surgery and a death sentence.

Thirdly, the argument is trying to point out that as doctors do not recommend art and music therapy as a treatment, they are doing a disservice to their patients and contributing to the rising cost of health care in the United States which is inconclusive because the cost of art and music therapy is not elaborated. The cost to provide art and music therapy might not be cheap as well, plus the time frame it would take to provide such treatment to the patients could also be more costly.

In summary, the point being made in the argument is not completely convincingly unless the counter points that have been made above is properly dealt with.

[RiyaCracks800]

The argument claims that doctors are contributing to the increasing healthcare costs in the United States by focusing on drug treatments and invasive procedure for treating physical and mental illnesses. The argument advocates the use of art and music therapy citing their therapeutic effects on the individuals who are ill. The argument stands on several unsubstantiated premises.

First, the argument claims that art and music have long been understood to have therapeutic effect. This is vague and unsubstantiated. The author does not provide any evidence as to how long have these therapeutic effects been known and whether such effects have really been observed or not. Moreover, the argument does provide any clarification about what kind of therapeutic effects is he or she talking about. A therapeutic effect could simply be stress-elevation or it could be something else but the author does not mention it.

Second, the argument claims that most doctors rarely rely on art and music and, instead, focus on drug treatment and invasive procedures. The argument makes an assumption that the doctors who are prescribing drug treatments and invasive procedures are not, also, recommending any art and music therapy. This assumption is a stretch because the doctors might very well be recommending art and music therapy to their patients without putting them down in any official records.

Third, the argument makes a generalisation that the drug treatments and invasive procedures, that doctors focus on, carry serious risks and side-effects. This generalisation is unsubstantiated because the argument presents no evidence to corroborate it. The argument does not talk about what kind of risks are associated with these treatments not it talks about how many of these treatments actually carry these risks. For example, a lot of drugs carry no serious risk at all.

Fourth, the argument claims that by focusing on these treatments, the doctors are contributing to the rising healthcare costs. However, the argument presents no evidence to support that these treatment are indeed expensive. The argument also presents no evidence to corroborate its claim that art and music therapy would be cheaper. The author of the argument also completely ignores the fact that, in many cases, the drug and procedural treatments are covered by healthcare programs or insurance while art and music therapies are not.

The argument ignores several key pieces of information and is, thus, debatable. It could be strengthened if it presented a thorough and clear account of the observed therapeutic effects of art and music on patients. It could be further strengthened if it presented an evidence that the doctors who are prescribing drug and procedural treatments are not recommending any art and music treatment at all. The author should, also, have presented evidence of the serious risks, as he or she claims, that the drug and procedural treatments carry. Finally, the argument should have presented a clear comparison of the cost involved in drug and procedural treatment and that involved in art and music therapy, taking into account the healthcare and insurance programs.

The argument ignores all the above factors and does not present all the relevant pieces of information. It, therefore, stands on a questionable ground and is debatable.

[varun2203]

The author of the argument starts by mentioning about the long understood therapeutic effects of art and music on individual suffering from physical or mental illnesses. However, since most doctors recommend costly drugs and invasive procedures instead of supposedly cost effective treatments such as exposure to art and music, the doctors are doing a disservice to their patients and are contributing to the rising health costs of US. The argument has several flaws.

Firstly, the argument starts by mentioning an unsupported premise that the therapeutic effects of art and music on individual with mental and physical illnesses have long been understood. The author fails to give a comparison on measurable factors such as the time of recovery or the number and type of cases addressed by either methods of treatments.

Secondly, the author concludes that the doctors are doing a disservice by recommending expensive treatments to their patients. This conclusion is too drastic. Since the doctors are currently being trained to prescribe drugs and surgical procedures, one cannot say that they are doing a disservice to their patients.

Hence, the argument can be strengthened by addressing the assumptions mentioned above.