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Hey, I am currently practicing for my GMAT and wrote this Issue Essay today: Topic: Analysis of an Issue Argument The following appeared in the editorial section of a WestCambria newspaper: “A recent review of the West Cambria volunteer ambulanceservice revealed a longer average response time to accidents than was reportedby a commercial ambulance squad located in East Cambria. In order to providebetter patient care for accident victims and to raise revenue for our town bycollecting service fees for ambulance use, we should disband our volunteerservice and hire a commercial ambulance service.” AWA- Online Essay The argument states that commercial ambulance services willprovide better care and raise revenue over West Cambria volunteerambulances. This does not include some important concern that must beaddressed to substantiate this argument. The statement does not addin to effect potential reasons for the difference in wait time for the twoambulances. This alone does not constitute a logical argument infavor of commercial ambulance services. Firstly, the accident victims may have a longer wait timefor volunteer ambulances because the volunteers may have a shortage ofvolunteers and ambulances available to them. Since volunteers are notpaid, and may lack funds for ambulances, this could cause the long waittime. The wait time has may have nothing to do with the amount of carethe volunteers provide for the victims. The volunteers may even provide bettercare than the commercial ambulance services. If there were more volunteers and West Cambria ambulancesavailable, the accident victims may not wait as long. Secondly, the collective service ambulances may be faster inresponse to victims because the goal may only be to raise revenue for the townby collecting service fees for ambulance use. This is a causality errorsince it may have nothing to do with the amount of care the victims get. Toimprove the justification that collective ambulance services should be used, aninterview process could be conducted on the victims in regards to which ambulanceservice provides the best care. Finally, the long wait time from West Cambria ambulancescould be a result in the circumstances, such as traffic, which would increasethe wait time. This long wait may have been a onetime scenario, however, to improvethe conclusion that collective ambulances are a better choice, there could astudy in the amount of times of wait time. Because the argument leaves out several key issues, it isnot persuasive to use collective service ambulances over volunteer ambulances. If it included the items discussed above instead of solely explaining the longwait time, the argument would have been more thorough and convincing. I am looking forward to reading your comments and feel free to send me your essays so that I can comment on them. Thank you very much in advance- Cheers Chantel

Hi, I've only recently started studying for GMAT and had a question which I was hoping to clarify. I apologize if this has already been answered! So, in the GMAT, there are 4 sections writing (1 topic), integrated reasoning (12 questions), Quant (37) and finally verbal (41). I generally hear people say, I got 49 in my practice verbal or quantitative. Or people say, you should get 700 in your practice test. The GMAT books says that in order to get 97%, you need to get 47 in Verbal. How is possible if there are only 41 questions. Am I missing anything basic here? Also, in a practice test, is it possible to get a feel of you overall mark? How do I know if I'm sitting in 600 or 650 or 700? If this has been covered in a previous thread, could you please send me a link? Varun