GRE Argument:The following appeared in a memorandum written by the chair of the music department to the president of Omega University.“Mental health experts have observed that symptoms of mental illness are less pronounced in many patients after group mus

The argument above comes to the conclusion that the music therapy degree program should expand by increasing the enrollment targets. The argument tries to support the conclusion based on the following claims. Firstly, symptoms of mental illness reduced after the patients were treated by group music therapy sessions. Secondly the increase in job openings and lastly the graduates from the degree program would easily obtain good positions. However, on close scrutiny it can be observed that the argument is rife with weak links and fallacies that are based on conspicuous logical flaws. The author arrives to the conclusion using vague and ambiguous terms. Each of the fallacies are discussed and evaluated in the following paragraphs.

The author suggests that music therapy sessions reduce the effects of mental illness. However, the author does not support this claim with any statistics to prove the number of patients treated which could be one or two patients to more patients. Hence this claim does not serve any purpose in the argument as the author does not provide any strong cogent evidence to support it.

It is also claimed that the number of job openings have increased. But it is not specified by exactly how many positions it has increased. The word many here is used as an ambiguous term, as many could mean only 2 people or even more based on context. Also the author does not discuss the existing number of therapists in the market, which would clear out exactly how many positions will be left to available to fill. Also the author without any substantial evidence stated that the graduates of the degree program would not find any difficulty to procure positions in the job market. Thus the author leaves the reader confused with ambiguous words and is unable to convince the reader his position.

Finally the author suggests that the music therapy degree program should be expanded and hence the financial status of the university will improve. This claim is the weakest link in the argument as it is not proven how the expansion of the degree program would improve the financial status of the university. Thus this claim does not serve any purpose and hence should be removed from the argument.

To strengthen the argument it could be suggested that the author should provide clear cogent statistics and evidence in support of all its claims of reduced illness, increased job positions and increased financial status. Along with this the author should avoid vague and ambiguous terms like "many", "good" etc.

In light of the above fallacies it can be concluded that the author does not provide substantial logical evidence and hence the argument needs to be strengthened as discussed above. Therefore, in its current form the argument does not serve any purpose as it is clearly unable to support its claims.