"Five years ago, at a time when we had difficulty obtaining reliable supplies of high-quality wool fabric, we discontinued production of our popular alpaca overcoat. Now that we have a new fabric supplier, we should resume production. Given the outcry from our customers when we discontinued this product and the fact that none of our competitors offers a comparable product, we can expect pent-up consumer demand for our alpaca coats. Due to this demand and the overall increase in clothing prices, we can predict that Sartorian's alpaca overcoats will be more profitable than ever before."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction 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 prediction.
The vice president urges that the company should resume production of alpaca overcoat that was discountinued five years ago due to lack of high quality wool fabric. To corraborate his/her suggestion the vice presidents says that a new fabric supplier is available, and given the demand for alpaca overcoat five years ago along with the increased clothing price, the vice president claims that the company is sure to make lucrative bussiness. Though believable at first glance, upon comtemplation, one can realize that a few question have to be answered in order to evaluate the soundness of the recommendation.
First, the vice president suggests that the company can now resume production of alpaca overcoats as new fabric supplier is available. The specific question that should be answered in this realm of discussion is - Does the new supplier provide as high quality wool fabric as the one that was available before discontinuing its production? The answer to this question would determine the quality of the alpaca overcoat. If yes, then one can be assured of the quality of the alpaca overcoat and if the answere is no, then there is every reason to believe that the vice president's claim would not be true.
Second, the author fallaciously assumes that the alpaca overcoat has the same demand as it had five years ago. Actually, this is a facial assumption: inasmuch as the author does not give any information of the demand currently. Fortuously, if the alpaca overcoat has the same demand it had in the past, then there is no doubt the company would make handsome profits by resuming its production. On the contrary, if it proves to be in no demand, then the vice president's suggestion would prove to be futile for the company.
Finally, the author argues that the overall clothing price has increased and this trend would help the company rack-in some money. However, one cannot be foolish to think if the increased prices can offset the production cost as due to inflation, it is very likely that the production cost should have also increased. The author's suggesion can only be lucrative if the increase in prices is more than the increase in production.
As we can see, the answers to the above questions would either corroborate or undercut the author's recommendation and as it stands, however, the argument is unpersuasive.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 392 350
No. of Characters: 1911 1500
No. of Different Words: 171 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.45 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.875 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.682 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 142 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 100 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 76 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.133 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.864 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.733 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.386 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.628 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.156 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 521, Rule ID: MANY_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun question seems to be countable; consider using: 'few questions'.
Suggestion: few questions
...n comtemplation, one can realize that a few question have to be answered in order to evaluat...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 92, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ould either corroborate or undercut the authors recommendation and as it stands, howeve...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, however, if, second, so, then, no doubt, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 36.0 55.5748502994 65% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1960.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 391.0 441.139720559 89% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.01278772379 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44676510885 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76980205344 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 177.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.452685421995 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 621.0 705.55239521 88% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.5194821792 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 130.666666667 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.0666666667 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.86666666667 5.70786347227 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.238291541811 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0895074608724 0.0743258471296 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0834132102125 0.0701772020484 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.126199715067 0.128457276422 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0729513060554 0.0628817314937 116% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => 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: 12.07 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.16 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 80.0 98.500998004 81% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => 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.