The following appeared as a letter to the editor from a Central Plaza store owner.
"Over the past two years, the number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been steadily decreasing while the popularity of skateboarding has increased dramatically. Many Central Plaza store owners believe that the decrease in their business is due to the number of skateboard users in the plaza. There has also been a dramatic increase in the amount of litter and vandalism throughout the plaza. Thus, we recommend that the city prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. If skateboarding is prohibited here, we predict that business in Central Plaza will return to its previously high levels."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In the presented argument, the author makes motley of assumptions in stating the conclusion. The conclusion drawn by the author here is that by prohibiting skateboarding in the Central Plaza, the amount of litter and vandalism would decrease and hence, the number of shoppers would increase. The premises stated by the author are not sufficient enough for drawing the conclusion.
The Central Plaza store owners believe that the reason the amount of shoppers in their stores is low is because of the presence of skateboarders. Their viewpoint is that these skateboarders vandalize and throw litter here and there which has kept the shoppers away from the Central Plaza. Now, while this may have some validity. But it cannot be proved for certainty without considering other possible reasons of low number of shoppers in the Central Plaza. Without considering the other possible reasons, prohibiting skateboarding is not a logical and reasonable decision and may prove to be a futile one. It may lead to even less number of shoppers.
One of the other possible reasons of the less number of shoppers in the Central Plaza could be the location of the mall. Is it located in a remote area or in the heart of the city? If it was located in the heart of the city, it was likely to attract more number of shoppers. But if it is located in a remote area or in the outskirts of the city, then the number of shoppers would likely be low. The more people live around the mall, the more people are likely to shop from the mall. Another possible reason to consider is the products sold at the stores in Central Plaza. Are these products suitable for the people visiting the mall? They should be of the appropriate quality depending on the class of people coming here for shopping and they should also be affordable enough for the people to buy them. The people should feel like they are not buying worthless items for a lot of money. The products should not be too extravagant or of too poor quality for the shoppers.
Another way that they could increase the number of shoppers to create awareness about their mall is by advertising. They could put advertisements on the billboards and on buses etc. and also showcase the offers and sales offered by the various stores to attract more and more customers. Because, the reason people are not shopping from the Central Plaza could be lack of knowledge or awareness about it. And, advertising could be the answer for it instead of prohibiting skateboarding.
The skateboarding, in fact, could be the only source of income of the Central Plaza. If the skateboarding is indeed popular here, then these skateboards are very much likely to shop from the stores of Central Plaza than any other person because these people visit the Central Plaza often so can do shopping from here and even attract their friends and family. Therefore, the prohibition of skateboarding might prove to be a futile decision, if not harmful. Hence, before coming to this conclusion, the other possible reasons should not be overlooked and they should be assiduously considered.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/following-appeared…
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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: 27 15
No. of Words: 529 350
No. of Characters: 2510 1500
No. of Different Words: 197 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.796 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.745 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.601 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 182 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.593 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.202 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.481 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.304 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.495 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.132 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, 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.
...t enough for drawing the conclusion. The Central Plaza store owners believe that...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, if, look, may, so, then, therefore, while, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2576.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 529.0 441.139720559 120% => OK
Chars per words: 4.86956521739 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79583152331 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67005587324 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 206.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.389413988658 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 799.2 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 48.0953957447 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 92.0 119.503703932 77% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.8928571429 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.42857142857 5.70786347227 43% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 11.0 4.67664670659 235% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.250863444275 0.218282227539 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0759921486192 0.0743258471296 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0893846386929 0.0701772020484 127% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.16428162227 0.128457276422 128% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0639906410036 0.0628817314937 102% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.0 14.3799401198 76% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.97 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.22 8.32208582834 87% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.