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.
For a local television station to make the argument that they need to restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level to attract more viewers of to the program, they need supporting data before this claim can be made. While it appears that restoring the time devoted to weather and local news will increase the number of viewers, one must do more research to determine the underlying factor of the loss of views.
First, the author readily assumes that the loss of viewers is due to the television station not covering local news and weather. While it is important for the station to cover local news and weather, many of its viewers want to be informed of national news as well. The author needs to compare their data to other television companies to determine the underlying cause of the loss of viewers.
Second, the author must look at other research data sources to determine if the loss of viewers is actually due to the station not playing local news and weather, or if it is due to other issues that are not in their control, such as people checking the news and weather on their smart phones. In this generation, people gain can knowledge about anything through their fingertips on their smartphones. The author must compare data with other television companies to determine if they're losing views due to not covering what their viewers want to watch or if it is due to smartphone use. By looking at this data, it will allow to author to know if the loss of viewers is due to smartphone use.
Finally, it is a stretch for the company to assume that their advertising cancelations are because of the loss of local viewers. It is critical for the author to investigate where the local businesses are now advertising. For example, the local businesses might be advertising on social media now instead of on the news channels. The author must take the generation they are catering to into consideration before claim that their loss of viewers is because of what the station is playing.
In conclusion, the argument that a televsion station must restore the time they once devoted to weather and local news to its former level to attract more viewers might be suitable from the surface. However, the author needs to determine if the loss of viewers is due to what they are playing or if there are changes in the generation they are catering to before they can make this claim. To strenghten this argument, the author needs to take the facts stated above into consideration.
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: 16 15
No. of Words: 440 350
No. of Characters: 2029 1500
No. of Different Words: 148 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.58 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.611 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.441 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 54 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.96 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.421 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.63 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.142 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 480, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: they're
...er television companies to determine if theyre losing views due to not covering what t...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 627, Rule ID: ALLOW_TO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'authoring'? Or maybe you should add a pronoun? In active voice, 'allow' + 'to' takes an object, usually a pronoun.
Suggestion: authoring
... By looking at this data, it will allow to author to know if the loss of viewers is due t...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, finally, first, however, if, look, second, so, well, while, for example, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2076.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 439.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 4.72892938497 5.12650576532 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.57737117129 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.51928598088 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 156.0 204.123752495 76% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.355353075171 0.468620217663 76% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 647.1 705.55239521 92% => 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: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.2624066952 57.8364921388 96% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.75 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.4375 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.5625 5.70786347227 115% => 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 : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.229949165576 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0957592082526 0.0743258471296 129% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0835104565296 0.0701772020484 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.162039156786 0.128457276422 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0710606347417 0.0628817314937 113% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 48.3550499002 109% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 12.197005988 103% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.45 12.5979740519 83% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.46 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 98.500998004 70% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 17.5 12.3882235529 141% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.