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.
The author of the argument makes unwarranted assumptions regarding expanding the business of Bargain Brand and marketing other low priced foods as quickly as possible. If these assumptions prove invalid, then the argument falls apart.
Firstly, the author of the argument assumes that the low prices introduced one year ago is the only reason for attracting more customers to Bargain Brand. If the Bargain Brand produces high quality Bargain Brand cereal, then this may be reason for the increasing profits as other companies may have provided cereal with same quality but at higher price. The profit made by the Bargain Brand may be because the price after the reduction made by the companies producing top brands is higher compared to the price of the cereal produced by Bargain Brand. In this case, the argument falls apart. The author has to provide an evidence that the low prices of the Bargain Brand is the only reason for the profits.
Secondly, the author of the argument assumes that marketing other low priced foods will make profits for the Bargain Brand. The author does not consider other factors which affects the sales made by the other low priced foods. If the other low priced foods are not of good quality, then people will prefer to buy that food from other companies which produce high quality food at higher price. If the people are not interested to buy other low priced food, then they will not buy the food even when it is offered at low cost. In the above cases, the argument falls apart. The author has to provide an evidence that low price is the most important thing people consider while buying any food or Bargain Brand can offer other low priced food at high quality to strengthen the argument.
The argument is based on the above unwarranted assumptions like the low price of the cereal is the only reason for the attracting more customers, marketing other low priced food will make profits. Unless these assumptions are addressed, the argument falls apart.
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: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 340 350
No. of Characters: 1623 1500
No. of Different Words: 122 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.294 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.774 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.237 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 110 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 76 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 46 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 26 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.991 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.451 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.602 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.182 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 398, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... profit made by the Bargain Brand may be because the price after the reduction ma...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, while, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 19.6327345309 61% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 11.0 28.8173652695 38% => OK
Preposition: 33.0 55.5748502994 59% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1660.0 2260.96107784 73% => OK
No of words: 340.0 441.139720559 77% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.88235294118 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.29407602571 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.29195976945 2.78398813304 82% => OK
Unique words: 130.0 204.123752495 64% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.382352941176 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 510.3 705.55239521 72% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => 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: 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: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.6942677878 57.8364921388 98% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.666666667 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.6666666667 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.4 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.246302508869 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.104302036971 0.0743258471296 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0902270145408 0.0701772020484 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.16249366294 0.128457276422 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.100822127289 0.0628817314937 160% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.32 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.05 8.32208582834 85% => OK
difficult_words: 50.0 98.500998004 51% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => 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.