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Dear Friends and GRE Experts, I am preparing for GRE and this is my 5th attempt to write a GRE essay (different topics each time). This is an argument topic given on official GRE website. I would request you to have a look on the essay and grade it upon convenience and availability of time. Thank You. Sincerely, NickyGRE. Actual GRE Argument Prompt: The following appeared on the Mozart School of Music Web site. "The Mozart School of Music should be the first choice for parents considering enrolling their child in music lessons. First of all, the Mozart School welcomes youngsters at all ability and age levels; there is no audition to attend the school. Second, the school offers instruction in nearly all musical instruments as well a wide range of styles and genres from classical to rock. Third, the faculty includes some of the most distinguished musicians in the area. Finally, many Mozart graduates have gone on to become well-known and highly paid professional musicians." 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 presented is a form of advertise on the website of Mozart School of Music, which promotes its readers to consider itself as the first choice while thinking of learning music or musical instruments. The first assumption that this kind of arguments suppose is that people would visit the web-site on which the advertisement has been published. It may be a case that the other schools of music publish their advertisement in news paper, other forms of print media or in radio or television broadcast, while the Mozart School of Music may be alone in publishing the advertisement through its web-site and there may be very few people, actually interested in learning music or musical instruments who might visit the web-site and the advertisement displayed in it. Though in the second statement, the argument states that it welcomes people of all age-groups and all ability levels,in the first statement it reveals its unstated assumption that its chief cluster of clients is children by stating 'the first choice for parents'. This suggests that the majority of new customers or new students that this school gets comes from children or youngsters of lower age. This also suggests the scientific assumption that at lower ages, the interests are easier to be cultivated, nurtured and developed than at higher or older ages. The fourth statement argues that the school possesses some of the most distinguished musicians as its faculty members. It is a vague and unclear statement since it doesn't state what are the criteria on which it establishes the 'most distinguished' status of its faculty members, for example, popularity of their musical albums, variations and skilles incorporated in their musical scores, intuitions presented in their compositions - these all factors can make them distinguished and well-reputed. Also, what it assumes as 'the area' is again a debatable topic, as music is a very wide region having majestic scope and its classification can vary individually. One possible classification can qualitatively confine music into different areas like vocal music, instrumental music etc. In the final statement, the argument assumes that the Mozart graduates, who have gathered reputation and fame after getting educated from the school, are well-known to the readers of this advertisement since there are no details given about the individuals who succeeded on the base of education gathered from the Mozart School. Then, again, the argument assumes that the relative term 'highly paid' communicates unanimous and unambiguous meaning to all different classes of its readers- poors and rich people alike. In conclusion, the argument poses some seriously flawed assumptions which can be corrected. Above is response typed in actual test conditions: 431 words