GMAT考试写作指导：Argument范文八七

　　3. In this argument the author concludes that the city should allocate some of its arts

　　funding to public television. The conclusion is based on two facts: attendance at the

　　citys art museum has increased proportionally with the increases in visual-arts program

　　viewing on public television, and public television is being threatened by severe cuts

　　in corporate funding. White this argument is somewhat convincing, a few concerns need

　　to be addressed.

　　To begin with, the argument depends on the assumption that increased exposure to

　　the visual arts on television, mainly public television, has caused a similar increase in

　　local art-museum attendance. However, just because increased art-museum attendance

　　can be statistically correlated with similar increases in television viewing of visual-arts

　　programs, this does not necessarily mean that the increased television viewing of arts is

　　the cause of the rise in museum attendance.

　　Moreover, perhaps there are other factors relevant to increased interest in the local

　　art museum; for instance, maybe a new director had procured more interesting, exciting

　　acquisitions and exhibits during the period when museum attendance increased, in

　　addition, the author could be overlooking a common cause of both increases. It is

　　possible that some larger social or cultural phenomenon is responsible for greater public

　　interest in both television arts programming and municipal art museums.

　　To be fair, however, we must recognize that the authors assumption is a special

　　case of a more general one that television viewing affects peoples attitudes and

　　behavior. Common sense and observation tells me that this is indeed the case. After all,

　　advertisers spend billions of dollars on television ad time because they trust this

　　assumption as well.

　　In conclusion, I am somewhat persuaded by this authors line of reasoning. The

　　argument would be strengthened if the author were to consider and rule out other

　　significant factors that might have caused the increase in visits to the local art museum.