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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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.
Here, the author states that margarine has replaced butter in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the Southwestern United States and this had little or no impact on their customers. Also, customers were not able to distinguish the difference between butter and margarine, or they have been duped with the name of margarine as butter. Author presents two evidences to support his argument, the first being, only 2 percent of customers have complained about the change. Secondly, when servers reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they were given margarine instead.
To begin with, there can be many possible reasons, why only two percent of people complained? Given that butter, has more cholesterol, affects health in long run if consumed in more quantity, increases obesity and so on. Individuals who were conscious for their health, chose margarine over butter. Also, margarine maybe cheaper, which makes it more affordable for consumer.
In addition to this, pancake sales are more during morning hours, as it is a breakfast meal. In morning time, due to the rush for reaching office on time, customers didn't have time for feedback or complaints.
Finally, servers who deliberately served margarine over butter, as claimed, may have dissuaded customers from doing so. Also, in local health magazine, may have written about benefits from margarine over butter. Thus people may have chosen margarine. Also, in restaurants of Happy Pancake House, comparison of butter to margarine may have been put up on the wall. So when, people asks for butter, severs explain to customers, why they should choose margarine. Thus, customers do not complain when they are given margarine instead of butter.
To recapitulate, author presents an interesting but a flawed argument and has failed to consider more alternative explanations for his claims. Had he provided more explanations as mentioned above, the argument would have been persuasive. As it remains, the author's argument is too weak to be true. Hence, I remain unconvinced.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 330 350
No. of Characters: 1680 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.262 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.091 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.651 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 130 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 92 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.029 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.569 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.122 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 166, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
... for reaching office on time, customers didnt have time for feedback or complaints. ...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 258, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ave been persuasive. As it remains, the authors argument is too weak to be true. Hence,...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, thus, in addition, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1748.0 2260.96107784 77% => OK
No of words: 329.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.31306990881 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.25891501996 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74110549492 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 185.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.562310030395 0.468620217663 120% => OK
syllable_count: 546.3 705.55239521 77% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 37.5012999775 57.8364921388 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 87.4 119.503703932 73% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.45 23.324526521 71% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.85 5.70786347227 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
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: 0.221944157205 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0706722126755 0.0743258471296 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.127254860988 0.0701772020484 181% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.112540755682 0.128457276422 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.102096211958 0.0628817314937 162% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.8 14.3799401198 82% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 46.78 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.22 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.03 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 98.500998004 76% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.