The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station Over the past year our late night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news During this period most of the complaints re | TOEFL IELTS GMAT GRE SAT ACT PTE ESL

Essay topics:

The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station.

"Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this period, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand our coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs."

Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

The following argument states that, a television station reduced the time on weather and local news to be replaced by national news at the late-night news program. During this time period the viewer complaints were concerned with the station's coverage of weather and local news. Also the advertisements played during this time have been reduced, as their contracts have been canceled. So the manager of the television station has called for restoring the previous amount of time reserved for local news and weather coverage. Though this might seem accurate at first glance, there are many points that should be answered before making any changes to the streaming of news at the station.
Firstly, the manager makes a statement regarding the complaints received, which were mainly regarding the station's coverage of weather and local news. Although, the exact nature of these complaints has not been disclosed. The author gives a hint that the content of the complaints is to increase time of the local news and weather coverage. But, it can very well be the exact opposite, and the viewers are pushing for reducing the time for this coverage further. The support for this might be that the time of the show airing is late in night, which might make the weather news stale. Rather than covering weather on the previous night, it can be covered in the morning on the next day.
The next point which the manager makes is regarding the advertising companies which are cancelling their contracts due to the same reason. However, there might be umpteen other reasons which are prompting the advertising companies to do so. They could be cancelling due to budgeting cuts due to excessive expenditure. They might have some issues with the television station staff which might have not reached the manager. So the cancellation of the contracts certainly cannot be linked with the argument necessarily.
Finally, the manager gives the counter reasoning which states that in order to attract more viewers, avoid losing more advertising revenues the station should restore the former time given to local news and weather. However, the manager here ignores all the other factors which might not necessarily increase the viewership of the late night program. One factor is the demographics of the region in which the program is being aired. The viewers in the area can consist of more youth who are not inclined to watch news as frequently as the older generation. Also the people in that area might be old which might mean they go to bed early, well before the time of the show. Also the advertising revenue is dependent upon the number of viewers tuning into the show and won't increase if the above factors come into play.
Thus, all in all the manager hasn't considered everything that might lead to the success of the late night show. The manager should answer all the above points carefully and jump to any hasty actions, which might end up hurting the revenue more than alleviating it.

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Essay Categories

GMAT/GRE Argument Task

Comments

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 235, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...ewer complaints were concerned with the stations coverage of weather and local news. Als...
^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 280, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...ons coverage of weather and local news. Also the advertisements played during this t...
^^^^
Line 2, column 107, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...ceived, which were mainly regarding the stations coverage of weather and local news. Alt...
^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 151, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Although” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ons coverage of weather and local news. Although, the exact nature of these complaints h...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 557, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
... as frequently as the older generation. Also the people in that area might be old wh...
^^^^
Line 4, column 672, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...arly, well before the time of the show. Also the advertising revenue is dependent up...
^^^^
Line 5, column 30, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: hasn't
...nto play. Thus, all in all the manager hasnt considered everything that might lead t...
^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, regarding, so, thus, well

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2480.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 501.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9500998004 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73107062784 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.46120653733 2.78398813304 88% => OK
Unique words: 219.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.437125748503 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 760.5 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 31.4739475598 57.8364921388 54% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 103.333333333 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.875 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.08333333333 5.70786347227 54% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.33672738299 0.218282227539 154% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.111217581267 0.0743258471296 150% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.121909256083 0.0701772020484 174% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.199220587273 0.128457276422 155% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.162441974197 0.0628817314937 258% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.3 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.43 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.97 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 106.0 98.500998004 108% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, regarding, so, thus, well

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments