The following appeared in a memo to the board of directors of Bargain Brand Cereals.
"One year ago we introduced our first product, Bargain Brand breakfast cereal. Our very low prices quickly drew many customers away from the top-selling cereal companies. Although the companies producing the top brands have since tried to compete with us by lowering their prices and although several plan to introduce their own budget brands, not once have we needed to raise our prices to continue making a profit. Given our success in selling cereal, we recommend that Bargain Brand now expand its business and begin marketing other low-priced food products as quickly as possible."
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.
There are many unstated assumptions in the argument regarding Bargain Brand Cereals. It is said that a year ago Bargain Brand Cereals introduced a low priced cereal that succeded in the market. And it is assumed that releasing another product now will also prove to be successful. There are many assumptions, which if proved to false will lead to the downfall of the company.
Firstly, it is assumed the success of the cereal is attributed to its low price. Maybe the customers were fond of the cereal due to its taste rather than the price itself. It might have been that along with lower cost, there were many other factors, which lead to the rise in sales of that product. Making this assumption as the base for other products, Bargain Brand Cereals plans on releasing other low priced products with high hopes of success. The people might not like the flavour of the new cereal. Even then if the product is released the sales of Bargain Brand Cereals could plummet and lead to the downfall of the company. Alternatively, the argument could specify extra reasons pertaining to the success of that particular cereal.
It is specified that even though the top-notch companies could not compete with Bargain Brand Cereals. Even after, lowering their prices and implementing new plans, they could not beat Bargain Brand Cereals in terms of sales. Herein, it is assumed that the market at present is the same as that of a year ago. The top-selling companies could have been facing a crisis due to various factors. Due to which they could not perform well in the market. And it could be that they have recovered from their fallback and now are ready to surpass Bargain Brand Cereals. This could prove fatal to Bargain Brand Cereals, as theirs is a start-up with minimal experience.
Lastly, Bargain Brand Cereals plans on introducing other food products into the market where it has no experience. It is assumed that since their cereal business of one product was successful their entire production of other products is likely to be successful. Without any background knowledge of the statistics of food products they are going to release, solely based on the success of one product Bargain Brand Cereals is ready to release other products. This assumption if unchecked will incur losses to the company.
To elucidate, if the above assumptions are not examined, they are proved to be dangerous for the company and may have serious implications.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 414 350
No. of Characters: 1987 1500
No. of Different Words: 171 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.511 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.8 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.408 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 137 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 53 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.217 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.391 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.325 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.095 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 316, Rule ID: IF_IS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
...sful. There are many assumptions, which if proved to false will lead to the downfa...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, lastly, may, regarding, so, then, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2040.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 414.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92753623188 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51076378781 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.51415744422 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 180.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.434782608696 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 615.6 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => 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: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 32.200459084 57.8364921388 56% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 88.6956521739 119.503703932 74% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.0 23.324526521 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.0 5.70786347227 53% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.354123654581 0.218282227539 162% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.11772902441 0.0743258471296 158% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0935034925866 0.0701772020484 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.203627516324 0.128457276422 159% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0973895757955 0.0628817314937 155% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.8 14.3799401198 75% => 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: 11.02 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 12.3882235529 52% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
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.