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 time 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 just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level.”
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence would be needed in order to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In the statements present in the memorendum, a business manager of a television station states that there has been a decline to the time devoted to weather and local news by the late night shows aired on the televisions over the past year. This according to the manager has resulted in an increase in complaints by the viewers regarding the less amount of weather and local news showed in these late night shows. Also, the manager stated that many local businesses have cancelled their advertising contract because of the same reason. The manager therefore suggested that in order to increase the numberof viewers and to avoid losing further advertising revenues, they should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level. However, according to me these statements are not convincing enough and appears to be based on a lot of assumptions.
Firstly, there has been no information provided by the business manager regarding the viewership, complaints and advertising contracts of the previous years. It may be possible that the viewers also gave a lot of complaints even when the weather and local news were showed more in the previous years. It is also possible that the viewers are not happy with the 'content that is showed in these local and weather news,rather than the 'amount of content' that is shown, and therefore it is assumed by the business manager that the viewrs are not happy because of the less amount of local and weather news shown to them.
Secondly, it is also assumed by the business manager that the local businesses have cancelled their advertising contract because of the same reason of less airing of local and weather news. It is also possible that the businesses cancelled their advertising contracts because they do not rely much on television advertising or maybe that they are well enough renowed now, and therefore do not need that much television advertising that they did in previous years. The business manager must therefore get proper information first about why local businesses are cancelling their advertising contracts and then make a judgement.
Thirdly, no information is provided about the complaints and advertising revenues gained during late night shows by other television stations in the same region. It is totally possible that the same case might not be there in other television stations, and they do not get much complaints regarding the weather and local news from the viewers and they might also still have advertising contracts with different local businesses, even after reducing the amount of weather and local news aired. Thus it cannot be assumed that less content of local and weather news is the reason of viewers complaints and less revenues from advertising.
In conclusion, I would say that the information presented in the memorendum is not complete, and further facts and convincing information should be provided by the manager to support their observations and suggestions.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/over-past-year-our…
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 487 350
No. of Characters: 2444 1500
No. of Different Words: 161 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.698 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.018 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.655 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 144 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 32.467 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.121 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.933 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.432 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.634 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.166 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 145, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e has been a decline to the time devoted to weather and local news by the late ni...
^^
Line 3, column 416, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , rather
...s showed in these local and weather news,rather than the amount of content that is show...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 145, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ht shows by other television stations in the same region. It is totally possible ...
^^
Line 7, column 275, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
...elevision stations, and they do not get much complaints regarding the weather and lo...
^^^^
Line 7, column 495, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...amount of weather and local news aired. Thus it cannot be assumed that less content ...
^^^^
Line 7, column 605, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun revenues is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...is the reason of viewers complaints and less revenues from advertising. In concl...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, well, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 24.0 11.1786427146 215% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2492.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 486.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 5.12757201646 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69525374022 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72317309958 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 168.0 204.123752495 82% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.345679012346 0.468620217663 74% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 769.5 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 32.0 22.8473053892 140% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 64.6734017111 57.8364921388 112% => OK
Chars per sentence: 166.133333333 119.503703932 139% => OK
Words per sentence: 32.4 23.324526521 139% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.2 5.70786347227 161% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.317798049957 0.218282227539 146% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.134365526087 0.0743258471296 181% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.103867532759 0.0701772020484 148% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.184807559634 0.128457276422 144% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.120740172878 0.0628817314937 192% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.9 14.3799401198 131% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.0 48.3550499002 81% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.07 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.5 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 70.0 98.500998004 71% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.8 11.1389221557 133% => 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.