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 argument states that the during past one year the late night new program has been devoting most of their time to national news and very less time on weather and local news, which has received several complaints form viewers, also there have been losses in advertising revenues, because existing local business have cancelled their advertising contracts.But there are several underlying questions which might weaken the conclusion which states that restoring to weather and local news will solve the problem.
The late news night program has devoted increased time to national news rather than weather and local news, there could be several underlying purposes such as the national news may be of an important concern to the nation, for example it could be some global meet whose details are being provided. Also there is a possibility that the news would be something important and different from what is being given on other programs.It is also possible that the national news might be generating a great rating and increasing viewership, which has resulted in change. So until such questions regarding why the program has called for a switch is unknown concluding anything would be wrong.
The mention of the complaints in the passage who were more concerned about local and weather news is also not stated completely. As it states "most of the complaints" it does not state that the number of complaints have increased. Until it is completely known what did the complaints state and have the number of complaints increased significantly, nothing can be said about the change in program being good or bad.
It is also assumed that the local business that used to advertise the program have cancelled their advertising contract because of change in the station's coverage of news. There could be several other reasons for cancelling the contract, like to get different viewers, or monetary issues etc which have not been stated.
The last statement suggests that in order to attract more viewers to program and to increase revenue they should restore the time to weather and local news, in fact the program should concentrate on improving the program, which does not necessarily mean restoring to previous methods will increase viewership and bring revenues back, but to improve the current national news coverage, which would be liked by viewers. And with regard to advertising revenue they could get some other advertisers maybe national instead of local, if the program continues to provide national news.
Therefore, it is not necessary that restoring to previous methods will be a boon, until such important questions are not answered one cannot conclude that the restoring to previous methods will be a good.
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: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 445 350
No. of Characters: 2240 1500
No. of Different Words: 190 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.593 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.034 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.515 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 158 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 34.231 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 20.283 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.384 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.693 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.106 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 358, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: But
...e cancelled their advertising contracts.But there are several underlying questions ...
^^^
Line 3, column 40, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... The late news night program has devoted increased time to national news rather t...
^^
Line 3, column 300, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
... meet whose details are being provided. Also there is a possibility that the news wo...
^^^^
Line 3, column 428, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: It
...m what is being given on other programs.It is also possible that the national news...
^^
Line 5, column 177, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...tates 'most of the complaints' it does not state that the number of com...
^^
Line 7, column 146, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...ising contract because of change in the stations coverage of news. There could be severa...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, if, may, regarding, so, therefore, for example, in fact, such as, with regard to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 16.3942115768 18% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2301.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 443.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19413092551 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58776254615 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64112596674 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 199.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.44920993228 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 692.1 705.55239521 98% => 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: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 19.7664670659 61% => 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: 36.0 22.8473053892 158% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 120.378454145 57.8364921388 208% => The lengths of sentences changed so frequently.
Chars per sentence: 191.75 119.503703932 160% => OK
Words per sentence: 36.9166666667 23.324526521 158% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.58333333333 5.70786347227 133% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.317375384192 0.218282227539 145% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.12092060899 0.0743258471296 163% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.108755794215 0.0701772020484 155% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.162801584937 0.128457276422 127% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.113338150295 0.0628817314937 180% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 21.5 14.3799401198 150% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 34.94 48.3550499002 72% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 17.3 12.197005988 142% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.41 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.63 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 26.5 12.3882235529 214% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 16.4 11.1389221557 147% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.