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.
In a memorandum from business manager, it is concluded that the news channel should resume its local and weather news coverage to attract more viewers and to avoid losing advertisement companies. The manager justifies the recommendation based on three premises: number of complaints received from local and weather news viewers and decline in advertisement from local businesses. However, before the assertion can be fully evaluated, the manager must justify his following three assumptions with compelling evidences.
Firstly, the manager assumes, illogically, that absence of local and weather news is only factor due to which local advertisers stopped advertising their goods in the news channel. However, this may not be the case. Perhaps, content and agenda shown in the news channels doesn't align with that of those local businessmen. May be, the local business had went bankrupt due to losses and doesn't want to invest money on advertisement. If above is true, the argument doesn't hold water.
Secondly, the manager fallaciously assumes that no outside firm, other than that of local firms, signed contract with the channel to advertise their product. It could be possible that new foreign company, seeing the channel's prioritization of international news, started advertising in the news channel. For all we know, it may be possible that sports related firm did contract with the channel due to its extensive coverage on sports news. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the conclusion drawn from original argument is significantly undermined.
Finally, even if the manager justifies above assumptions with compelling evidences, he assumes that the local business firm will continue their advertisement contract with the channel if they start telecasting local and weather news. However, this may not be true. There is chance that the businessmen who stopped their advertisement from the channel will never return again. It may even be possible that the nexus of local businessmen become unanimous and collectively discard the news channel. If this is true then broadcasting local news again will not be so fruitful.
In conclusion, argument as it stands, is significantly flawed due to its reliance on unwarranted assumptions. However, if the manager justifies aforementioned assumptions with compelling evidences (probably in terms of systematic research), then it will be possible to fully evaluate the recommendation of broadcasting local and weather news again.
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: 19 15
No. of Words: 385 350
No. of Characters: 2052 1500
No. of Different Words: 174 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.43 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.33 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.943 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 147 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.263 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.839 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.363 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.516 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.094 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 272, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...t and agenda shown in the news channels doesnt align with that of those local business...
^^^^^^
Line 2, column 386, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...ess had went bankrupt due to losses and doesnt want to invest money on advertisement. ...
^^^^^^
Line 2, column 463, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...isement. If above is true, the argument doesnt hold water. Secondly, the manager fal...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 217, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'channels'' or 'channel's'?
Suggestion: channels'; channel's
...le that new foreign company, seeing the channels prioritization of international news, s...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 497, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” 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.
... collectively discard the news channel. If this is true then broadcasting local ne...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2105.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 382.0 441.139720559 87% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.51047120419 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.42095241839 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.0067140224 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 183.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.479057591623 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 642.6 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 57.7892819477 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.789473684 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.1052631579 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.42105263158 5.70786347227 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.231590463184 0.218282227539 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0862084007789 0.0743258471296 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0666683964512 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.157144144644 0.128457276422 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0524313621912 0.0628817314937 83% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.68 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.39 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.