The following appeared in a business magazine.
"As a result of numerous complaints of dizziness and nausea on the part of consumers of Promofoods tuna, the company requested that eight million cans of its tuna be returned for testing. Promofoods concluded that the canned tuna did not, after all, pose a health risk. This conclusion is based on tests performed on samples of the recalled cans by chemists from Promofoods; the chemists found that of the eight food chemicals most commonly blamed for causing symptoms of dizziness and nausea, five were not found in any of the tested cans. The chemists did find small amounts of the three remaining suspected chemicals but pointed out that these occur naturally in all canned foods."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be addressed in order to decide whether the conclusion and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to the questions would help to evaluate the conclusion.
The argument presented has various assumptions and loopholes, also the argument leaves many questions unanswered. The claims made by the author sounds bigoted and partisan.
Firstly, the author claims that the company tested the produce, however what the author did not mention was the size of the sample. The question of how many cans out of those cans which were returned were tested remains unanswered. It could be that the testing was done only on few cans. Looking at the number of the cans which were returned, the test should have been on almost all the cans picked up by random.
Secondly, the author of the article claims that out of eight chemicals which cause dizziness and nausea, only three were found by the chemists of Promofoods. What the author fails to answer is whether or not the results are lucid and not fabricated. the argument does not contain any information about the sanctity of the tests done. When it comes to consumer's health the author should have also included the results from some third-party food quality testers to make the argument more reasonable.
Lastly, the chemists at Promofoods claim that small amounts three chemicals which are commonly blamed for causing dizziness and nausea are found naturally in all canned foods. What is not mentioned it the amount. While comparing a product which has some chemicals which are not desirable, the amount should have been mentioned. It can be small in the chemist's lingo but can cause harm to humans.
In conclusion, if the argument had contained answers to the questions discussed above, it would have made the argument more reasonable to make the people believe the claim that the culprit is not the canned food sold by Promofoods
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/pet-food-company-r…
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 289 350
No. of Characters: 1400 1500
No. of Different Words: 146 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.123 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.844 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.34 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 102 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 69 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 46 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.643 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.574 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.619 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...he author sounds bigoted and partisan. Firstly, the author claims that the comp...
^^^
Line 6, column 194, 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
...ods. What the author fails to answer is whether or not the results are lucid and not fabricate...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 251, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: The
...e results are lucid and not fabricated. the argument does not contain any informati...
^^^
Line 6, column 335, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “When” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...n about the sanctity of the tests done. When it comes to consumers health the author...
^^^^
Line 8, column 352, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'chemists'' or 'chemist's'?
Suggestion: chemists'; chemist's
... been mentioned. It can be small in the chemists lingo but can cause harm to humans. ...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, look, second, secondly, so, third, while, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 11.0 28.8173652695 38% => OK
Preposition: 29.0 55.5748502994 52% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1440.0 2260.96107784 64% => OK
No of words: 289.0 441.139720559 66% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.98269896194 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.12310562562 4.56307096286 90% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.43473249433 2.78398813304 87% => OK
Unique words: 149.0 204.123752495 73% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.515570934256 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 430.2 705.55239521 61% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
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: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 50.6155004805 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.0 119.503703932 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.2666666667 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.86666666667 5.70786347227 120% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.121018062844 0.218282227539 55% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0403887925052 0.0743258471296 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0389496617686 0.0701772020484 56% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0563837010759 0.128457276422 44% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0358485093944 0.0628817314937 57% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.7 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.6 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.29 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 68.0 98.500998004 69% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.