Argument Topic: "The following is taken from a memo from the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company. "According to a recent report from our marketing department, during the past year, fewer people attended Super Screen-produced movies than in any other year. And yet the percentage of positive reviews by movie reviewers about specific Super Screen movies actually increased during the past year. Clearly, the contents of these reviews are not reaching enough of our prospective viewers. Thus, the problem lies not with the quality of our movies but with the public's lack of awareness that movies of good quality are available. Super Screen should therefore allocate a greater share of its budget next year to reaching the public through advertising."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The following memo from Super Screen Movie's advertising director states that although there has been a decrease in people watching Super Screen-produced movies, a higher percentage of positive reviews have been made in the past year. Thus, the director argues that a greater budget should be put into advertising the movies to the public to heighten awareness. This argument is based on several assumptions, which are rife with flaws. The director must therefore reconsider his points in the memo, providing evidence to support and strengthen the validity of the argument.
The director notes that there has been an increased number of positive reviews by movie reviewers about specific Super Screen movies. However, the director does not further explain what the percentage of increase is -- is it a significant enough of an increase to be provided as a point in argument? Perhaps the director only chose to focus on the increase in positive reviews, but he does not mention whether or not there has been an increase or decrease in negative movie reviews. If the director could provide evidence, for example, the significance of increase in the positive reviews compared to previous years, and a diminished amount of negative reviews, then his argument would become stronger. The director should also mention the reasons why those who left positive reviews enjoyed the specific movies as well. Were those specific movies, amongst all others produced by Super Screen, superior in quality? If so, there could be a problem in the quality of most of Super Screen's movies except the ones given positive reviews.
Following from the point above, although there are indeed more positive reviews, it does not simply correlate to the fact that the public would agree with these reviews. For example, those who chose to give a good rating on Super Screen movies may be fans of these specific movies and genuinely enjoy them, therefore giving a biased opinion in their reviews. As such, it is invalid for the director to simply assume that because of the positive reviews, the public would share the same taste as the movie reviewers and agree with their opinions. Perhaps a survey could be done, on instance, asking for regular movie-goers opinions on Super Screen movies and whether they were interested in watching them or not.
Lastly, the director concludes in the end that the problem is not in the quality of Super Screen movies but that the public is simply unaware of the high quality movies available. Here, we see again that there is illogical reasoning in his point made. In no way does the director go further and explain, for example, why there is no problem with Super Screen's movies, and that the public lacks the awareness that they exist. His point would be strengthened if he provided support in that a survey was done randomly amongst the public, and the majority of people reported not knowing of Super Screen movies' existence. If that was the case, the director could more confidently say that due to the unawareness of the public, there were less people attending the movies, and further advertising must be done to garner people's attention.
To strengthen the director's argument that more advertising is needed for Super Screen movies to reach the attention of the public, the director must first address all points of his argument. By resolving the flawed assumptions he makes, the director's argument would become much stronger and valid in supporting his desire to increase advertisements for Super Screen.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- not exactly
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samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/following-taken-me…
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 582 350
No. of Characters: 2886 1500
No. of Different Words: 228 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.912 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.959 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.503 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 229 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 163 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 112 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.455 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.272 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.591 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.374 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.172 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 403, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...sitive reviews, but he does not mention whether or not there has been an increase or decrease ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 734, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...e unawareness of the public, there were less people attending the movies, and furthe...
^^^^
Line 9, column 19, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...eoples attention. To strengthen the directors argument that more advertising is neede...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 242, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...ng the flawed assumptions he makes, the directors argument would become much stronger and...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, lastly, may, so, then, therefore, thus, well, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2954.0 2260.96107784 131% => OK
No of words: 582.0 441.139720559 132% => OK
Chars per words: 5.07560137457 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.91168771031 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.55513593968 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 240.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.412371134021 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 924.3 705.55239521 131% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.9436387709 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.272727273 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.4545454545 23.324526521 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.0 5.70786347227 70% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.268951039089 0.218282227539 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0945532437367 0.0743258471296 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0740488543611 0.0701772020484 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.18680472087 0.128457276422 145% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0644914398415 0.0628817314937 103% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.3799401198 109% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.48 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.07 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.