The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants.
"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. This change, however, has had little impact on our customers. In fact, only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that an average of 98 people out of 100 are happy with the change. Furthermore, many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. Clearly, either these customers do not distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine."
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
The author claims that customers either believe butter and margarine are the same or they use the erm ‘butter’ to refer to either butter or margarine. These explanations arise due to Happy Pancake House restaurants replacement of butter with margarine. The author asserts that only 2% of customers have complained about the change and servers report that customers asking for butter do not complain. However, before the author’s explanation can be accounted for the facts presented in the argument, three alternative explanations must be considered.
First of all, it is possible that most customers who ask for butter but receive margaine are aware that the server provided them with margarine but decide not to complain out of courtesy and kindness. Perhaps many customer’s have worked in restaurants and sympathize with the server; thus, trying to avoid embarrassing the server by pointing out her mistake. Alternatively, it is possible that the customer recognizes there are many other customers in the restaurant and wish not to burden the server with additional, unnecessary tasks. If any of the above are true, then the author’s assertion that customers cannot distinguish the two or that they use the terms interchangeably, does not hold water.
Secondly, the lack of complaints may simply be due to the fact that, while most customers acknowledge that the server provided margarine rather than butter, they are indifferent. That is, it is possible that many customers do not care whether they are given butter or margarine, as they enjoy the taste of butter and margine equally and have no particular preference. If this scenario has merit, then the author’s original assertion that the customers cannot distinguish between butter and margarine would be false.
Lastly, another alternative explanation that would plausibly account for the lack of complaints could be that most customers prefer margarine but were not aware that Happy Pancake House served margarine. The passage states that the restaurant had only replaced butter with margaine recently. That being said, it is possible that most of the customers that eat at the restaurant regularly and are aware that they only have butter; thus, they only ask the server for butter. However, they are then presently surprised when the server provides them with margarine and therefore have no desire to complain. If the above is true, then the author’s original explanation would be false.
In conclusion, the author’s explanations appear to be accompanied by multiple alternative explanations that are equally as plausible for accounting for the facts mentioned in the passage. That being said, the author must provide additional information in order to support his claim.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 433 350
No. of Characters: 2254 1500
No. of Different Words: 185 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.562 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.206 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.741 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 165 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 100 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 71 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.056 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.77 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.368 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.571 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.124 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 113, Rule ID: EQUALLY_AS[1]
Message: Don't say 'equally as'. You can use either 'equally' or 'as' on its own. When comparing two nouns, use 'just as'.
Suggestion: equally; as; just as
...tiple alternative explanations that are equally as plausible for accounting for the facts ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, then, therefore, thus, while, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 25.0 13.6137724551 184% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2324.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 433.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.36720554273 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56165014514 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86885299588 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 194.0 204.123752495 95% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.448036951501 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 724.5 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.1096938512 57.8364921388 66% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.111111111 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.0555555556 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.27777777778 5.70786347227 110% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
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: 0.144608379385 0.218282227539 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0628707386277 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0806488357578 0.0701772020484 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0900303083818 0.128457276422 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0658335181467 0.0628817314937 105% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.3550499002 80% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.16 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => 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.