GRE Argument Essay 9

Argument

For the past five years, consumers in California have been willing to pay twice as much for oysters from the northeastern Atlantic Coast as for Gulf Coast oysters. This trend began shortly after harmful bacteria were found in a few raw Gulf Coast oysters. However, scientists have now devised a process for killing the bacteria. Once consumers are made aware of the increased safety of Gulf Coast oysters, they are likely to be willing to pay as much for Gulf Coast as for northeastern Atlantic Coast oysters, and greater profits for Gulf Coast oyster producers will follow.

Essay

The argument is based on a trend, which is running for the last five years that the consumers in California are ready to pay more for oysters from the northeastern Atlantic Coast than for Gulf Coast oysters. According to the author, this started when some harmful bacteria were found in a few raw Gulf Coast oysters. However, as per this argument, now the scientists have invented a new method to kill these harmful bacterial, hence, the value of Gulf Coast oysters will increase again.However, this argument is not very acceptable, as many important points have been ignored. First, the author has not mentioned the quantity of Gulf Coast oysters in which the harmful bacteria were found. The whole lot of Gulf Coast oysters cannot be rejected just because of a few affected oysters. The author has not tried to explain this aspect. Moreover, there does not seem to be any relation between the price of oysters from the northeastern Atlantic Coast being twice high as Gulf Coast ones and harmful bacteria found in a few raw Gulf Coast oysters. It might be that the Gulf Coast oysters are more easily available than the northeastern Atlantic Coast oysters. There might be some other factors that can affect the prices of the two types of oysters. These factors cannot be ruled out without any research. Hence, the author should have studied the data carefully and logically to explain the link between the two things.Secondly, the author has mentioned about a process devised by scientists to kill the bacteria, but he has not tried to explain the procedure. In fact, the author has not mentioned about the success ratio of this method. The author has talked about the increased safety of Gulf Coast oysters but he is not very sure. There are chances that this procedure can only inhibit the growth of the harmful bacteria or can kill a small portion of the bacteria. Hence, this argument can be concluded based on this statement. It is still not very convincing that if consumers were made aware of the increased safety of Gulf Coast oysters, they would be ready to pay the increased amount for Gulf Coast ones. It might be possible that they will be worried about the success rate of this new procedure or some side effect of this method.There is one more low point of this argument. These changes took place in the market five years ago. The consumers might or might not be that fond of oysters. Five years is a long period, hence this is just a speculation that the price of Gulf Coast oysters will increase and the market will make profit from them. Even if this assumption comes true and the price of Gulf Coast oysters increases, the author has not offered any data that will help us to compare the two prices. The author has also not mentioned other factors that will affect the profitability of the producers of Gulf Coast oysters. Hence, it cannot be said with surety that the producers will gain profits with the increased prices. In the end, we can say that this argument needs a detailed study of many other factors.