GRE--Argument30：出生率下降带来了什么

【The short passage】：

30.The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava.

"The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students enrolled in our public schools will soon decrease dramatically, and we can safely reduce the funds budgeted for education during the next decade. At the same time, we can reduce funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. As a result, we will have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults, since we can expect the adult population of the city to increase."

【The introduction】：

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

【The sample answer】：

The budgets for education, sports fields and entertainment facilities are recommended to be cut down in a ten-year budget plan, whose reduction, as is estimated, is able to ensure the sufficiency of money spent on adult-used facilities and programs (多argument的题型开头概括观点时力求简洁清晰). Without affording adequate verifications, this argument tends to be problematic.

It is argued that a declining birthrate would lead to lower enrolment rate significantly and the budgets for education, thus, should be curtailed and so does that for sports and entertainment （这两处argument是并列关系，可以合并到一起写更简洁）. This proposal is unlikely to be tenable as even though there are fewer babies born, the decrease of enrolment rate might not ensue immediately.It takes time for babies to grow into children of school age（完善‘逻辑提升’部分的细节）.Besides, if public schools do find it strenuous to enlist local students, they are not necessarily unable to maintain their enrolment rate. Admitting those students from neighbor cities or other countries could offset the lost number from enrolling local ones (将长句子切开写更有益于展现清晰的推理过程).With regard to the reduction for sports and entertainment facilities, this budget plan assumes only students are the users of them. Yet, it is highly possible that adults, occupies by work all day long, tend to need workout and relaxation facilities more desperately (此点可以选略写). As a result, trimming expenses on education, sports and recreational facilities is groundless with the flaws aforementioned.

Further, it is deduced the money saved is able to be invested in adult-used facilities and programs. Initially, it is dubious the amount of money saved in aforementioned aspects is large enough to fund those facilities and programs （质疑关键词：sufficient）. Besides, this estimation could be substantiated when public money allocated to other fields does not increase at least (点明该推论成立需要具备的第二个条件). The analysis above is conducted by assuming that the adult population will increase. However, if there is higher death rate in the future owing to force majeure (plague, war, natural disasters etc.), the increase is unlikely to be realized （可以先默认成年人口会上升去分析推论，然后探讨成年人口变化的另外一种可能来推翻推论成立的前提可能不存在）. As a result, there is no need to make financial supplement for adults’ facilities and programs.

Conclusion

（略）