The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of a food distribution company with food storage warehouses in several cities.
"Recently, we signed a contract with the Fly-Away Pest Control Company to provide pest control services at our warehouse in Palm City, but last month we discovered that over $20,000 worth of food there had been destroyed by pest damage. Meanwhile, the Buzzoff Pest Control Company, which we have used for many years in Palm City, continued to service our warehouse in Wintervale, and last month only $10,000 worth of the food stored there had been destroyed by pest damage. Even though the price charged by Fly-Away is considerably lower, our best means of saving money is to return to Buzzoff for all our pest control services."
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 vice-president of a food distribution company argues that a pest company should be replaced because the warehouse it worked on incurred more loss than the other one managed by different pest company. Although, the point made sounds plausible but they need to be further analysed before any action taken.
According to data provided, warehouse in Palm city suffered the loss of $20,000, while that in Wintervale lost $10,000 worth of food, in both cases, because of pest. Before reaching any conclusion based o figures, we need to what was the ratio of loss to total worth of food present in the warehouse. It could be possible that in Palm city, there was $100,000 worth of food and Wintervale there was $30,000 worth of food. Clearly, Wintervale suffered more loss here than Palm city. The total worth of food present must be computed before comparing the losses in each warehouse.
Secondly, it is not clear how was the damage quantified in each of the warrehouse. It is easy to calculate the loss if the food was package, since one can just read the price printed on the food to gauge the loss. However, if the warehouses contains items like vegetables and fruits, whose price fluctuate with time, it becomes tedious to determine the loss. The Vice president should elaborate how was the loss calculated to support his decision.
Thirdly, it could be possible that food item that were affected by pest in Palm city were more costly, so little damage has significant cost than in Wintervale. As a result, Wintervale had more damage but since we are only considering value, not the quantity of food affected, Palm city warehouse would suffer more loss, just because the food affected in Palm city were more expensive. Hence, amount of food affected by pest should be considered while making the decision to give contract to another company.
Fourth, Palm City might be suffering from acute pest problem presently and Fly-way pest control might have under-estimated the problem. In such case, had the Buzzoff company was responsible for Palm city, one could expect similar result. As a result, it would be prudent to give Fly-way one more chance and see if they could improve next time.
The argument made by Vice President is not complete and convincing. It leaves several questions unanswered and should not be used to make any decision.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
flaws:
some duplicate arguments.
also need to argue:
1. the date. it is just for 'last month'.
2. the conclusion:
Even though the price charged by Fly-Away is considerably lower, our best means of saving money is to return to Buzzoff for all our pest control services.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 397 350
No. of Characters: 1895 1500
No. of Different Words: 187 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.464 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.773 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.457 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 127 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 63 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.895 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.333 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.474 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.34 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.626 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.118 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 510, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...on to give contract to another company. Fourth, Palm City might be suffering fro...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, hence, however, if, second, secondly, so, third, thirdly, while, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 16.3942115768 12% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1944.0 2260.96107784 86% => OK
No of words: 397.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.89672544081 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46372701284 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.53859297922 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.491183879093 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 618.3 705.55239521 88% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.249948778 57.8364921388 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.315789474 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8947368421 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.26315789474 5.70786347227 75% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.218408912315 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0689711520888 0.0743258471296 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0610343101015 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.116530263883 0.128457276422 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0452513146971 0.0628817314937 72% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.14 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.17 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.