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 manager claimed that in order to attract more customers, the television station should focus more on providing local and weather news. Stated in this way, the manager failed to mention several key factors on the basis of which the argument can be evaluated. To justify it further, the manager reasons that local and weather news can focus on customers and advertisers and can generate more revenues. However, careful scrutiny of the evidence provides little credible support to manager's argument. Hence manager's argument can be considered as incomplete and unsubstantiated.
First of all, the author failed to mention any details about the other news channel which is already showing weather and local news. If that news channel is already popular and people are following it already, then switching from national news to weather and local news may bankrupt the channel. Moreover, it would be credible to know about the number of complaints about low coverage of weather and local news. If there are only a few complaints, then it would be inadequate to consider those complaints.
Furthermore, it would be necessary to know why the advertising company had canceled the contract. Maybe possible that the contract has been canceled by the advertising company due to some other reason like their lack of funds. Additionally, the manager had not mentioned whether there are other advertisers who have been enhancing due to national news for the station. Moreover, if people of that area who are viewing the national news are retired people and if they're more interested in the national news rather than anything else then it would be irrelevant to switch from national to weather and local news.
Finally, it could be possible that the decline in advertisers is due to lack of interest of people in watching late night news. Maybe possible that they would like to listen to music or watch other comedy shows or movies irrespective of the daily news. Hence, if the manager had surveyed more about the type of shows, then it would make the argument more adequate to analyze.
In conclusion, the manager's argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the manager must provide clear concrete evidence, perhaps by the way of a reliable survey about the other stations in that area which are popular as well as the number of viewers of the television station. Finally, to better assess the argument, it would be necessary to know more about why the manager thought that switching to weather and local news could be a profitable move.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- it is for argument 2 too.
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sample:
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: 19 15
No. of Words: 425 350
No. of Characters: 2083 1500
No. of Different Words: 175 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.54 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.901 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.532 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 129 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.368 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.311 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.36 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.584 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.137 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 502, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
... credible support to managers argument. Hence managers argument can be considered as ...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 463, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: they're
...national news are retired people and if theyre more interested in the national news ra...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 20, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...quate to analyze. In conclusion, the managers argument is unpersuasive as it stands. ...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, furthermore, hence, however, if, may, moreover, so, then, well, in conclusion, as well as, by the way, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2133.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 424.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 5.03066037736 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.53775939005 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61300212904 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 186.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.438679245283 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 674.1 705.55239521 96% => 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: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.5247565431 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.263157895 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.3157894737 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.89473684211 5.70786347227 121% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.278505543088 0.218282227539 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0969553127635 0.0743258471296 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0820954594916 0.0701772020484 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.170502616157 0.128457276422 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.051233426517 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.19 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
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.