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 author's conclusion that the canned tuna did not pose a health risk is flawed. The author should answer certain questions first in order to prove if his argument could be reasonble. It what follows, I will explain three of this questions.
First, the author is sure that since it has not been found dangerous chemists in the tested cans, it will not be those chemists in the entire population of cans. This is a flawed argument given the fact that that sample could not be enogh representative of the entire population. If you do not get any fish from the sea, it does not mean that there are not fishes in it. This is the same case. The author should improve the examinations incorporing more cans in the sample. Perhaps, many untested cans are contaminated with this dangerous substancies and that could explain why some people have felt ill.
Second, he is assuming that the three chemist found in the tested cans are normal in canned foods so they are not dangerous for people. He needs to find if these few amounts of these chemists can cause some kind of illness in people. Because although they are normal to be found, he does not know if this quantities are dangerous. It is probable that even this small quatitities could have caused all the cases of dizziness and nausea that have been reported.
Third, he is assuming that there are not others causes of the dizziness and nausea presented in his customers. However, there could be another factor which explains why these people felt ill. Perhaps these tuna cans were expired. He did not mention anything about the caudusity of the cans. What if they are expired? This bad state tuna could have another chemist beside those who were tested previously. Therefore, in order to find any other cause, an improvement in the product study should be conducted.
To conclude, the author's argument could be strengthened if he asks for a greater sample to be sure that all cans are free of dangerous chemist. Furthermore, his argument could also be strengthened if he runs another test looking for another factors of illness beside those who have already been tested. However, as it stands, the argumentation is flawed for the reasons indicated.
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: 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: 381 350
No. of Characters: 1778 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.418 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.667 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.416 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 118 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 79 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 50 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 32 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.318 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.335 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.591 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.292 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.498 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 5, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
The authors conclusion that the canned tuna did not...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 227, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...t what follows, I will explain three of this questions. First, the author is sure...
^^^^
Line 5, column 301, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...normal to be found, he does not know if this quantities are dangerous. It is probabl...
^^^^
Line 9, column 18, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ould be conducted. To conclude, the authors argument could be strengthened if he as...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, however, if, look, second, so, then, therefore, third, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 33.0 55.5748502994 59% => 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: 1830.0 2260.96107784 81% => OK
No of words: 381.0 441.139720559 86% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.8031496063 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.41805628031 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.50420386281 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 180.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.472440944882 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 560.7 705.55239521 79% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 14.0 4.96107784431 282% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 37.7426365833 57.8364921388 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 79.5652173913 119.503703932 67% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.5652173913 23.324526521 71% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.82608695652 5.70786347227 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.117077009985 0.218282227539 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0382159566448 0.0743258471296 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0321450566646 0.0701772020484 46% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0751994411629 0.128457276422 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0164913182709 0.0628817314937 26% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.5 14.3799401198 66% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 63.7 48.3550499002 132% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.4 12.197005988 69% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.26 12.5979740519 81% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.46 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
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.