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 author of the memo recommends the board of directors that they venture into other food products providing them at low cost given the success they have with low priced Bargain Brand breakfast cereal product. However, before the recommendation can be properly evaluated, one would need answers to the following three questions.
Firstly, will other food products be received with same enthusiasm as they did with Bargain Brand cereal? In other words, can the success they had with cereals be taken for granted for other food products as well? Different foods are consumed for different purposes - some are taken for their nutritional value while others are taken solely for pleasure. It is not judicious to come to a hasty conclusion that the company will have the same success with other food products as well by providing them at low cost. It is possible that the market might stigmatize the low priced products as low quality products which can eventually have a detrimental effect even on the sales of the cereal product. If the above scenario has any merit, then the author's recommendation will not bring the aniticipated profits.
Secondly, are there any other players in the market that are already providing other food products at very low price? In a highly competative market, it is highly plausible that on seeing the success strategy of a company, other companies can come up with their own version of such strategies to make the most out of such cheap tricks. Hence, one cannot be considered inane for assuming that there are already some brands that provide other food products at low prices. If this happens to be the scenario in the market, then it can be considered that Bargain Brand is too late to the game and the author's argument is significantly weakened.
Finally, will providing other food products at low prices be as lucrative as the cereal product? Perhaps, they are able to make a good profit without increasing the prices even once for the demand cereal has in the market. However, it may not be the case for other food products as well. It is possible that other food products may not have as much demand as that of cereals and selling them at very low prices will actually make the company incur loses let alone profit. The prevalance of such a case will drain the money from the company and the author's recommendation will prove to be baneful to the company.
Therefore, the argument, as it stands, is unpersuasive as it relies on series of unwarranted concessions. One will be better informed to evaluate the efficacy of the recommendation if the author can provide answers to the above questions in a detailed manner.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 453 350
No. of Characters: 2163 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.613 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.775 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.535 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 148 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.842 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.35 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.351 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.548 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 744, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... above scenario has any merit, then the authors recommendation will not bring the aniti...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 598, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...n Brand is too late to the game and the authors argument is significantly weakened. ...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 15, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'will' requires the base form of the verb: 'provide'
Suggestion: provide
...ignificantly weakened. Finally, will providing other food products at low prices be as...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 549, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...rain the money from the company and the authors recommendation will prove to be baneful...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 239, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in a detailed manner" with adverb for "detailed"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
... provide answers to the above questions in a detailed manner.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, thus, well, while, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => 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: 2212.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 453.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 4.88300220751 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61343653406 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60207403129 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 196.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.432671081678 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 695.7 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 39.2969376349 57.8364921388 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.421052632 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8421052632 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.94736842105 5.70786347227 122% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => 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: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.20402890097 0.218282227539 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0789911245656 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0711015791598 0.0701772020484 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.133669176313 0.128457276422 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0747694699597 0.0628817314937 119% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
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: 11.32 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.95 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.