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 discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The argument stated above is faulty for numerous reasons. Essentially, the author rests the argument on foundationless assumptions that the duration of the established company is sufficient to measure success, cereal and other food products will have identical outcomes and other factors have not played a role in the success of Bargain Brand Cereals.
Firstly, the author fails to provide evidence to support that the company of Bargain Brands will proceed in the same trend as their initial success. A year ago, Bargain Brands launched their first breakfast cereal at a low price, and it has been a popular product amongst the population. The author assumes that no changes will occur to the environment that would demonstrate a decline in the selling of Bargain Brands cereals. It could be that the year their cereal product was released, it was the only new cereal in the market, making it more appealing to the public. Then, because of its fresh appeal to the population, it could be that the rates of cereal sold were high for this reason. It still cannot be guaranteed that the rate of cereal products being sold will remain constant after the cereal has been on the market for a longer time. On the other hand, if the author presented evidence that the company was still thriving a couple years from now, the argument would be more plausible. In either case, customer preference is not mentioned.
Additionally, the argument neglects to address other issues presented. Imagine in a couple years Bargain Brands cereal is still flourishing and customer likings lean towards Bargain Brands, it is still unjust to conclude other Bargain Brands food products will also illustrate the same success as their cereal. It could be possible that the ingredients subsumed in the cereal is the top-rated in the area for cereals, which led to the popularization of Bargain Brands cereal. This necessarily does not mean other food products will have an identical outcome. However, if Bargain Brands considers popular ingredients for every food product they launch, then the argument will hold more validity. But even then, it cannot be surely said that the food products will also mirror the success as the cereal.
As a result of the various unwarranted presumptions made by the argument, the author fails to compile a compelling case to prove the release of other food products will mirror the success seen by the cereal products of Bargain Brands.
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: 17 15
No. of Words: 406 350
No. of Characters: 1999 1500
No. of Different Words: 182 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.489 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.924 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.503 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 160 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 110 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 60 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 31 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.882 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.289 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.529 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.363 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.507 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.097 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, so, still, then, as a result, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 55.5748502994 70% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2049.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 406.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.04679802956 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.48881294772 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.58116444855 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 185.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.455665024631 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 612.0 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.8322311665 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.529411765 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8823529412 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.11764705882 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => 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: 0.30910038445 0.218282227539 142% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.114100529731 0.0743258471296 154% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0921738133382 0.0701772020484 131% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.19356160178 0.128457276422 151% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0780500242982 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.3 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.31 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.2 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.