The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of video rental stores.
“In order to reverse the recent decline in our profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore’s ten video rental stores. Since we are famous for our special bargains, raising our rental prices is not a viable way to improve profits. Last month our store in downtown Marston significantly decreased its operating expenses by closing at 6:00 P.M. rather than9:00 P.M. and by reducing its stock by eliminating all movies released more than five years ago. Therefore, in order to increase profits without jeopardizing our reputation for offering great movies at low prices, we recommend implementing similar changes in our other nine Movies Galore stores. ”Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation
The memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore states that the chain of rental stores should cut down operational costs for all their branches, by extrapolating a result from one of their stores to close at 6pm and eliminate all movie stocks aging 5 years or more. In order to be accurately evaluated, 5 questions must be answered.
Firslty, how is it assumed that the situations at the store at downtown Marston is in anyway similar to that in other stores, perhaps the other stores are at city center while the downtown Marston store is at the outskirts, adding to that , there could be signifact differences in sizes of shops and their intended customers, thus for an accurate predition, the similarity between the stores must be established with thorough facts.
Secondly, why is there a need to close the shop at 6pm? although closing the shop at 6pm may reduce operational costs, it may also result in a pitfall in the amount of sales made, as people may prefer to go to a video game rental after work/school hours. For instance, the number of people going for theatre at the evening is considerably more than people seeing the movies at day time, morover the target audance are mainly school children, who have to attend to school at daytime. This question of the amount of sales made per operational cost must be thoroughly evaluated and data should be provided accordingly.
Thirdly, Why is there a need to eliminate video games dating 5 years or more? although there is a technological boom and the video game quality is on an ever increasing rate, but the value of vintage games don't die out. Take for example, car racing lovers could opt to play out the 2005 NFS most wanted again than a below par new racing game. There should be accurate data about the trends of people regarding their choice of video games (old vs new), for this question to be accurately answered.
Fourth, Why should the operational costs be reduced only by reducing the working hours?Operating costs could be reduce by a decrease in staff, rather than a decrease in working hours as, rush hoirs could be identified by obsrevation and accordingly the number of employees in those hours could be made more while reducing the number of employees when customers are scarce.
Fifth, why is it percieved that the reduction in recent decline of profits a clear indication of the market falling off? a plummet of sales could be because of an off season and not neccesarily a reflection of dying of the video game market, accurate trend regarding the amount of sales in recent years should be evaluated before reaching this conclusion
The argument is clearly flawed, there need to be solid answers to the above mentioned questions before coming into a conclusion regarding the fate of other stores in the cghain of Movie Galore. Answers to these questions will help evaluate the argument effectively.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 11 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 498 350
No. of Characters: 2333 1500
No. of Different Words: 236 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.724 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.685 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.519 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 103 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 38.308 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 18.951 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.769 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.339 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.729 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.05 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 84, Rule ID: IN_ANYWAY[1]
Message: Did you mean 'in any way'?
Suggestion: in any way
...ons at the store at downtown Marston is in anyway similar to that in other stores, perhap...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 239, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...tore is at the outskirts, adding to that , there could be signifact differences in...
^^
Line 5, column 57, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Although
... there a need to close the shop at 6pm? although closing the shop at 6pm may reduce oper...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 426, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'schooled'.
Suggestion: schooled
..., morover the target audance are mainly school children, who have to attend to school ...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 79, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Although
...ate video games dating 5 years or more? although there is a technological boom and the v...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 207, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ng rate, but the value of vintage games dont die out. Take for example, car racing l...
^^^^
Line 9, column 88, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: Operating
...uced only by reducing the working hours?Operating costs could be reduce by a decrease in ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 122, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: A
...r indication of the market falling off? a plummet of sales could be because of an...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, anyway, but, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, third, thirdly, thus, while, for example, for instance
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 83.0 55.5748502994 149% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2412.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 495.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 4.87272727273 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71684168287 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.62791572867 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 244.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.492929292929 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 749.7 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => 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: 33.0 22.8473053892 144% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 124.77546055 57.8364921388 216% => The lengths of sentences changed so frequently.
Chars per sentence: 160.8 119.503703932 135% => OK
Words per sentence: 33.0 23.324526521 141% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.53333333333 5.70786347227 150% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.206092618643 0.218282227539 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0667511184195 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.065379485236 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.105136902183 0.128457276422 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0767752829863 0.0628817314937 122% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.0 14.3799401198 125% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.44 48.3550499002 96% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.56 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.5 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 15.2 11.1389221557 136% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.