'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.
The statement is true to a point, but not completely supporting evidence. Although there have been arguments but not enough examples to support them, and hence the strength of the arguments have collapsed. Firstly, there are no stats on the viewership of national news. Secondly, the author fails to explain any statistical information on the people who've complained. Additionally, there is no comparison between the revenue that was being reaped in the past year with what is being earned now.
The author has failed to provide any information on the viewership of national news. This generates an immediate question about what time increase has taken place. If in a two hour long bulletin, there has been a time increase of a mere 5 minutes, it doesn't really make a difference to the viewership. However, if there has been a noticeable time increase, of say 30 minutes, this may support to some context, the argument of the user.
Additionally, there is no information about how many complaints are based on weather and local news. There is no figurative information to explain the argument. The author uses the word 'most' but fails to explain how many are 'most'. Also, there is no information about the complainants. Are there a huge number of complaints from a particular group (say advertisers) or an equal number of complaints from the population as a whole.
Furthermore, the author has failed to identify whether the advertisements with national businesses bloomed as a consequence of more national news being telecasted in the past year. If there is a visible increase in the revenue from national businesses, provided the sum of profits is more than what earlier was, it clearly indicates that the television station is reaping more profits and hence should continue with the new strategy.
Extrapolating the response, the author leaves a lot of loose ends and this causes the strength of argument to startle. The author should provide more statistical information to support what he is trying to convey.
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: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 335 350
No. of Characters: 1641 1500
No. of Different Words: 158 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.278 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.899 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.83 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 115 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 94 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.611 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.234 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.556 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.322 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.562 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.092 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 351, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: who've
...y statistical information on the people whove complained. Additionally, there is no c...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 252, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...a time increase of a mere 5 minutes, it doesnt really make a difference to the viewers...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, however, if, may, really, second, secondly, so
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 12.9520958084 23% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 2.0 13.6137724551 15% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 9.0 28.8173652695 31% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1690.0 2260.96107784 75% => OK
No of words: 333.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.07507507508 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.27180144563 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91869646578 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 160.0 204.123752495 78% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.48048048048 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 532.8 705.55239521 76% => 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: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 47.9794516202 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.8888888889 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.5 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.16666666667 5.70786347227 91% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => 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: 0.197922233969 0.218282227539 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0599976508548 0.0743258471296 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0562231635781 0.0701772020484 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.102735731731 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0643389891619 0.0628817314937 102% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.7 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.18 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.94 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 98.500998004 73% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.