The following appeared in a memorandum from the manager of WWAC radio station To reverse a decline in listener numbers our owners have decided that WWAC must change from its current rock music format The decline has occurred despite population growth in o | TOEFL IELTS GMAT GRE SAT ACT PTE ESL

Essay topics:

The following appeared in a memorandum from the manager of WWAC radio station.

"To reverse a decline in listener numbers, our owners have decided that WWAC must change from its current rock-music format. The decline has occurred despite population growth in our listening area, but that growth has resulted mainly from people moving here after their retirement. We must make listeners of these new residents. We could switch to a music format tailored to their tastes, but a continuing decline in local sales of recorded music suggests limited interest in music. Instead we should change to a news and talk format, a form of radio that is increasingly popular in our area."

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

In the memonradum, the manager concludes that the WWAC radio station must change its content from its current rock-music format to a news and talk format to reverse a decline in listener numbers. This argument lacks certain evidence that, if not provided, weaken it dramatically.

To begin with, the owners feel that the decline in listener numbers has been partly because of the apathy of the new residents towards rock-music format. This is evident as the manager briefly suggests switching to a music format tailored to the tastes of these new residents, implying that they may not be interested in rock-music. While it may be partially true that the new residents are indifferent to rock-music, there may be other reasons for the decline in listener numbers. The manger doesn't talk about the quality of the music that they are putting in, or for that matter even advertising and whether the content is reaching its intended audience. Alternate radio channels with rock-music as their predominant content may have popped up in recent years and the people could have switched to those channels. To summarize, the manager needs to invalidate each of these potential alternate reasons for a decline in the listener numbers and establish that the format of rock-music becoming outdated in the context of the radio station area as the sole reason for the decline.

Secondly, the manager maybe drawing wrong conclusions by extrapolating that the continuing decline in local sales of recorded music suggests limited interest in music. For some time now, sales of recorded music have been decreasing globally and this issue is not pertinent only to the area covered by WWAC radio station. An increase in subscription based Apps like Spottify and Apple Music are a reason for this. If we go by the number of listeners of the songs coming out today, one would only suggest that music is more popular today than it ever was. Buying records was a norm in the pre internet era, but today it is the exception. The manager must provide evidence, pehaps in the form a report comparing the no. of people buying records vs no. of people consuming music through alternate means like Spotify and Apple Music for the area and only if the difference is marginal, would his claim that people have limited interest in music hold true.

Also, the manager suggests that the radio station should change its content to a news and talk format, a form of radio that is increasingly popular in their area. Even if we assume that news and talk is increasingly popular, there is no guarantee that this would reverse the trend of a decline in listener numbers as listeners would be wary of a rock radio station switching all of a sudden to a news station. If the format is increasingly popular, it is only wise to assume that a large no. of radio stations are already present to cater to this form of radio, and an addition to this would mean only redundancy, not invention. The manager must provide evidence, in the form of examples of other such transformations in recent times and how succesful they were to arrive at this conclusion.

To wrap up, the current argument, as it stands, is pretty weak and needs more conclusive evidence to support the switch in the form of radio content from rock-music to news and talk based for increasing the no. of listeners.

Votes

Essay Categories

GMAT/GRE Argument Task

Comments

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 494, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...decline in listener numbers. The manger doesnt talk about the quality of the music tha...
^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, briefly, but, if, may, second, secondly, so, while, to begin with

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 45.0 28.8173652695 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 78.0 55.5748502994 140% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2773.0 2260.96107784 123% => OK
No of words: 572.0 441.139720559 130% => OK
Chars per words: 4.8479020979 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.89045207381 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59789209779 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 245.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.428321678322 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 874.8 705.55239521 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.5638356514 57.8364921388 106% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.045454545 119.503703932 105% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.0 23.324526521 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.22727272727 5.70786347227 57% => 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 : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.329183564373 0.218282227539 151% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0972127766241 0.0743258471296 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.104681866275 0.0701772020484 149% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.21405312471 0.128457276422 167% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.104354809188 0.0628817314937 166% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.15 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.1 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 115.0 98.500998004 117% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?

---------------------

Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, briefly, but, if, may, second, secondly, so, while, to begin with

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments