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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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.
In the given argument, author has put his thoughts about the change in customers complain, by replacing the butter with margarine, however it sounds good but author might miss some facts related with customer’s behaviour which can have a direct impact on the business and also customers may not like it. Now let’s see which areas author missed here to put his thoughts on.
It is describing that, ‘Recently’, butter replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurant about the south western United States. But how recently this happened is not mentioned in the argument. There can be the possibility that people who live in south western prefer margarine over butter because it is healthier and fat free. Also, we all know modern types of margarine are made from vegetable oils, which contains polyunsaturated fats that can lower the ‘Bad’ cholesterol when used instead of saturated fat. for example (Butter). Whereas, the possibility that customers of author’s restaurant are not so health conscious can’t be denied.
Later, author concludes that because only 2 percent of customers have complained, all other 98 percent are happy with the change. However, Not complaining about something, doesn’t guarantee you the satisfaction for the same. There are many other possibilities like customers might be happy with the ambience of restaurant, they find it quite peaceful place to have their meal which directly diverts their mindset and prevents them from complaining about mere issues like butter and margarine.
Further it is given that many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. As we mentioned above the customer usually tend to behave like matured ones and that’s why they are not complaining with the service.
Hence, we can say that the author is reaching to an uninformed conclusion that the customers are unable to distinguish between Butter and Margarine, ignoring the possibilities mentioned above. The fact that the customers are noticing the change but keeping from addressing it to the manager can’t be denied. Therefore, the Business Manager needs to take a genuine survey from the customers and reach a conclusion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 359 350
No. of Characters: 1821 1500
No. of Different Words: 193 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.353 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.072 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.616 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.933 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.636 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.149 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 520, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: For
...rol when used instead of saturated fat. for example Butter. Whereas, the possibilit...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, however, may, so, therefore, whereas, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1898.0 2260.96107784 84% => OK
No of words: 358.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.30167597765 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34981470047 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75456386914 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 196.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.54748603352 0.468620217663 117% => OK
syllable_count: 578.7 705.55239521 82% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => 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: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.9924103028 57.8364921388 121% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.625 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.375 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.1875 5.70786347227 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.181074743699 0.218282227539 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0666939641397 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0904752752639 0.0701772020484 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0935064622237 0.128457276422 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0711504951312 0.0628817314937 113% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.76 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.48 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.