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 cancelled 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 the memorandum by the business manager of the television station proposed to expand their coverage of weather and local news on all their news programs in order to attract more viewers to their news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues. The manager come to this conclusion based on complaints received from the viewers as well as cancellation their advertising contracts with local businesses. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, three question must be answered.
First of all, does the ad company still focus on television advertisement? It is possible that the ad company is more focusing on digital content like You Tube, Facebook or other social network rather than television advertisement. We live in an age of modern science where internet streaming is much preferable than television. So may be the ad company significantly focusing on how to spread their product publicity through internet and other online sources. If either of the scenarios has merit, then conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, do all ages of the people like to see local news and weather news? The manager of the television assumes that the choice of all viewers is same, that means all ages of viewers like to watch same kind of things like weather and local news. However, this might not be the case. Perhaps the young generation like to watch national news and the middle old generation like local and weather news. It is very easy to find out the weather condition by the young generation through internet, as though they are very active on internet nowadays.
Finally, is past years condition still not changed? The argument fails to provide any justification that past years situation is similar to current times. Perhaps, economical situation may be change with modern technology. It is possible that people are more attracted to smartphone than television. Young generation spend more time on their laptop and not television. If the viewers are not much interested like past years, then the argument does not hold water.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer the three question above and offer more evidence ( perhaps in the form of a systematic research study ), then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation to expand their coverage of weather and local news on all their news programs in order to attract more viewers to their news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues.
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: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 431 350
No. of Characters: 2169 1500
No. of Different Words: 193 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.556 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.032 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.73 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.524 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.876 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.619 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.29 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.29 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 111, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
... to provide any justification that past years situation is similar to current times. ...
^^^^^
Line 4, column 165, Rule ID: ECONOMICAL_ECONOMIC[1]
Message: Did you mean 'economic' (=connected with economy)?
Suggestion: economic
...n is similar to current times. Perhaps, economical situation may be change with modern tec...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 206, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e question above and offer more evidence perhaps in the form of a systematic rese...
^^
Line 5, column 258, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
... the form of a systematic research study , then it will be possible to fully evalu...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, well, in conclusion, kind of, as well as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2214.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 431.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13689095128 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55637350225 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81493283744 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 200.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.46403712297 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 700.2 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => 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: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 80.4507144798 57.8364921388 139% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.428571429 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.5238095238 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.85714285714 5.70786347227 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.249284798748 0.218282227539 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0667686181769 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0808262801445 0.0701772020484 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.137646475503 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.084466574863 0.0628817314937 134% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.0 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.53 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.78 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 86.0 98.500998004 87% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => 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.