The following appeared in an editorial in a business magazine.
"Although the sales of Whirlwind video games have declined over the past two years, a recent survey of video-game players suggests that this sales trend is about to be reversed. The survey asked video-game players what features they thought were most important in a video game. According to the survey, players prefer games that provide lifelike graphics, which require the most up-to-date computers. Whirlwind has just introduced several such games with an extensive advertising campaign directed at people ten to twenty-five years old, the age-group most likely to play video games. It follows, then, that the sales of Whirlwind video games are likely to increase dramatically in the next few months."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
It has been stated in the editorial published in a business magazine that, the sales of Whirlwind video games are going to increase drastically due to introduction of new series of video games alongwith strong advertising campaign. The conclusion is made based on the survey of video game players. The conclusion is made on the basis of following assumptions.
The author states that, the survey of video- gamers reveal that they prefer a more life like graphic and since Whirlwind is going to launch these video games including these features the sales of the company will increase. However, it is possible that such games are already in the market developed by competitor company and the consumers don’t have the requisite infrastructure to install and enjoy these high graphic video games on their current machine. There might be a case that such increase in infrastructure is far more costly and is not affordable to these video gamers. Therefore, just launching high graphic video games will not ensure increased sales of the company.
Furthermore, it is also possible that the reason for decline of the sales is because people are loosing interest in playing these video games and are adopting other hobbies or are involved in certain other activities. For example, it is possible that few teenagers who used to play video games have now realized the importance of the physical activity and are more interested in that. There is also a possibility that they are not getting enough time to play these games due to change in their schedule which has resulted in decline of the sales. Hence, even if the high graphic video games are available they will not have the bandwidth or the interest to play.
It is also assumed that, the sales will increase with the newly introduced video games. There is a possibility that these customers have simply shifted to different video games provided by different companies since they provide different types and concepts of games. For example, say a competitor company xyz provides video games in the area of “building a city” and Whirlwind provides games related to “combat” and consumers are more interested in these city building games. So, even if Whirlwind introduces high definition graphics these people will still be choosing the other games.
From above points it is clear that the author has made few unwarranted assumptions which weakens the argument of the author that the sales of the company will increase upon introduction of high graphic video games. Further clarity on the reasons for having these assumptions need to be provided to evaluate the whole argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 435 350
No. of Characters: 2149 1500
No. of Different Words: 179 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.567 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.94 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.567 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 142 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.588 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.629 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.529 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.388 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.607 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.117 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... the basis of following assumptions. The author states that, the survey of video...
^^^
Line 5, column 75, Rule ID: REASON_IS_BECAUSE[1]
Message: Probably an incorrect phrase. Use 'the reason 'is that''.
Suggestion: is that
...hat the reason for decline of the sales is because people are loosing interest in playing ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 477, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[6]
Message: “So , even if” 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.
...nterested in these city building games. So, even if Whirlwind introduces high definition graphics these people will still be choosing the other games. From above points it is clear that t...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, furthermore, hence, however, if, so, still, therefore, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2212.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 434.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09677419355 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56428161445 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64090683726 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.433179723502 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 713.7 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => 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: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.3178057258 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 130.117647059 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.5294117647 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.23529411765 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.295700776651 0.218282227539 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.116611306164 0.0743258471296 157% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0638615028565 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.189516452105 0.128457276422 148% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0786077957428 0.0628817314937 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.37 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.