GRE Argument: The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Parkville Daily newspaper."Throughout the country last year, as more and more children below the age of nine participated in youth-league sports, over 40,000 of these young players suff

The given argument arrives at a conclusion that athletic competitions for children under the age of nine should be discontinued. It is supported by three claims. The first claim is that in the athletic competition over 40,000 of the young players suffered injuries. The second one is that parents and coaches exert physiological pressure to win games and lastly the academic curriculum needs more hours which imply that the academics are being affected by the athletic games. However on close scrutiny one can see various weak links in the argument that stand out as conspicuous logical flaws. Each of these flaws has been discussed in the succeeding paragraphs.

The author has mentioned that 40,000 of the young players have been injured while participating in the competition. However the author here does not mention the number of children participating in the games which could be anything from over 40 million participants or also could be 40,000 participants itself. For example if the participants are 40 million the percentage of children injured is 0.1% which is clearly negligible whereas if there are 40,000 participants then all 100% of them are injured. Also the author does not mention the type of injuries in the argument which could be even minor injuries like bruises or even bigger injuries like fractures. Therefore it can be said that the number 40,000 in the argument is of no purpose or use as it does not strengthen the claim.

When it comes to the fact that parents and coaches are pressurizing the soccer players to win games and psychologically affecting the students, the author fails to mention whether the survey was taken by one or two soccer players or all the soccer players participating in the youth-league soccer games. Also the problem here is with the parents and coaches, which is not a substantial reason for the games to be closed. Instead the parents and coaches should be corrected and explained to end the pressurization of kids.

The last claims states that the number of academic hours should be increased by stopping the youth-league games. However the author nowhere in the argument substantiates the relation between the academics and the games and that the games affect the academics. Statistics that prove the fact that athletics affect the academics should have been stated to support the claim. Therefore this claim is the weakest link and does not fulfill any purpose in the argument.

This argument is rife with holes and assumptions. To convince the reader the author needs to mention clear statistics with relation to the facts in the essay about the injuries, pressure and even the academics to corroborate and validate his claims . Also the author should avoid making sweeping generalizations and deriving extreme conclusions out of minimal facts.

In light of the above fallacies, it can be seen that the argument fails to provide strong evidence. Therefore, in its present form, the argument is unconvincing due to the lack of substantial logic in support of its claim.