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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 this argument, the author concludes that customers cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use butter to refer to either butter or magarine. To bolster this argument, the author points out that the replacement of butter by margarine does not have significant effect on consumers. However, there are still a myriad of explanations which could rival the proposed explanation of the argument.
Firstly, the author mentions that only about 2 percent of customers have complained of the replacement. But this survey is not warranted because there are other explanations of the survey. The selected sub-group may not be representative of the whole general group. It is likely that all the selected customers are from China where only small portion of people consume butter and cannot distinguish butter from margarine, thus, they will not complain about the replacement. But not all the customers in southwestern United States are from China. Therefore, to back the argument, the author should provide more information about whether the sample is representative or not.
Secondly, the statement that servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine is unsubstantiated as there are additional explanations that may rival the statement. The author assumes that their words are reliable and stank for all the servers, Nevertheless, they may distort the actual condition and tell the lie to the surveyor s to not to have conflicts with their bosses who make the resolution to replace butter by magarine. Thus, without additional information of whether those servers tell the truth or not, it is difficult to access the merit of the statement.
Thirdly, the author assumes that these consumers do not distinguish butter from margarine or confuse the term butter and margarine. Actually, there are other explanations that can explain why there are few complains of the replacement. Perhaps consumers just do not have time to make a complaint, or they do not know how to complain about the replacement, or more commonly, presents are offered by servers if consumers if they mark favorite comments. In conclusion, in order to better strengthen the assumption, I would need more detailed information involving the reason why those consumers do not make complaints.
In a nutshell, the argument is unconvincing as there are several explanations that can rival the proposed explanation. If the argument had included the given factors discussed above, it would have been more logically acceptable.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-essays/following-memorandum-business-ma…
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 407 350
No. of Characters: 2106 1500
No. of Different Words: 181 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.492 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.174 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.857 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.611 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.25 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.833 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.34 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.568 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 420, Rule ID: IF_IS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
...nts are offered by servers if consumers if they mark favorite comments. In conclus...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, firstly, however, if, may, nevertheless, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2164.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 407.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.31695331695 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49157444576 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.96860198102 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.464373464373 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 674.1 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.340884882 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.222222222 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.6111111111 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.0 5.70786347227 140% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.104395087395 0.218282227539 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0384113093567 0.0743258471296 52% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.044176806183 0.0701772020484 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0635030169976 0.128457276422 49% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0388892905656 0.0628817314937 62% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.34 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 93.0 98.500998004 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.