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 time 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 just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In the memo, the business manager recommends the television station should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to the former level to avoid losing advertising revenues.
He points out that most of the complaints received form viewers were concerned with the station's coverage of weather and local news. However, he doesn't provide readers with what the total number of readers is and how many pieces of complaint the station receive. It's likely there are 100,000 people watch the program, and only 1 percent of them write the complaint letter. What's more, it's likely that 700 people complaint the lower coverage of weather and local news among the rather huge sample.
He also says that local businesses that used to advertise during the late-night news program have just canceled their advertising contracts. Nevertheless, he doesn't give us what the economic situation is and how many viewers watch the late-night news program compared with other stations. It's likely that there's a serious recession causing the advertisers to cut down their cost, and the supervisors decide to stop signing any contracts with the station. On the other hand, it's possible that the quality of the station's program is declining. On the contrary, other stations make more efforts to attract the viewers by inviting a famous host. Hence, the viewers of the station would choose the other stations' program instead of that of the station.
At the end of the memo, the manager concludes that the station should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to the former level for losing advertising revenues. However, changing to the original arrangement isn't necessary to get the contract back. The manager should provide us with the total viewers of national news and weather and local news. It's likely that the amount of watching national news transcends that of weather and local news. Consequently, the result may show that losing the contract isn't contributed to the programs' arrangement.
To sum up, before convincing the supervisors to alter the programs, the manager needs to get more data and analyze them carefully.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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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: 17 15
No. of Words: 351 350
No. of Characters: 1751 1500
No. of Different Words: 160 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.328 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.989 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.48 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.647 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.69 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.529 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.368 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.591 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.202 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 89, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...ed form viewers were concerned with the stations coverage of weather and local news. How...
^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 145, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
... of weather and local news. However, he doesnt provide readers with what the total num...
^^^^^^
Line 2, column 373, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: What's
...ent of them write the complaint letter. Whats more, its likely that 700 people compla...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 158, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...advertising contracts. Nevertheless, he doesnt give us what the economic situation is ...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 305, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: there's
...ed with other stations. Its likely that theres a serious recession causing the adverti...
^^^^^^
Line 4, column 220, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...r, changing to the original arrangement isnt necessary to get the contract back. The...
^^^^
Line 4, column 514, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...esult may show that losing the contract isnt contributed to the programs arrangement...
^^^^
Line 4, column 538, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'programs'' or 'program's'?
Suggestion: programs'; program's
...ng the contract isnt contributed to the programs arrangement. To sum up, before convinc...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, hence, however, may, nevertheless, so, on the contrary, to sum up, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 5.0 19.6327345309 25% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1781.0 2260.96107784 79% => OK
No of words: 347.0 441.139720559 79% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.1325648415 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.31600926901 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.52357108067 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 162.0 204.123752495 79% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.466858789625 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 536.4 705.55239521 76% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 29.2469499785 57.8364921388 51% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 104.764705882 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.4117647059 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.41176470588 5.70786347227 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.324234855553 0.218282227539 149% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.112346017402 0.0743258471296 151% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.100238254108 0.0701772020484 143% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.187399966896 0.128457276422 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.112852545006 0.0628817314937 179% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.09 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 98.500998004 77% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.