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 business manager has posed several immediate concerns regarding its late-night news program, including complaints about a possible decrease in viewership because of changes in the station's weather and local news coverage. S/he has also pointed out that advertising contracts have been canceled. However, the business manager has made an argument that, without evidence regarding the local businesses' behavior, its viewers' complaints, and the television station's intentions, make it invalid.
Firstly, the manager should ask him-/herself what is causing local businesses to cancel their advertising contracts. He/she implies that they have canceled them solely because of changes in the late-night news program. However, has he/she contacted those businesses and point-blank asked them, "Why have you canceled your business contract with us? Was it due to the change in our late-night news program?" Until the manager knows the exact reasons, he/she cannot infer that they canceled their contracts because of the late-night news program. If they canceled because of changes, then it would strengthen the argument; however, if they canceled because they were unhappy with new personnel, poor reporting, or lack of advertisement by the news channel, then the argument would be severely weakened.
In addition to considering what is causing local businesses to cancel their advertising contracts, the manager should ask him-/herself how many local businesses canceled. Television stations rely on a myriad of sources for revenue; they do not solely rely on advertising contracts. Because it is unclear if this television station is sponsored by the government, it is also unclear whether this program was receiving a significant amount of funding to the extent that losing its advertisers has a considerable impact. Therefore, the manager would want to determine how many businesses canceled, how much was lost in revenue, and whether that can be made up by other sources. If too many are canceling and too much was lost in revenue without it being covered by other sources, then it would strengthen the argument; however, if any of those is invalid, then the argument is weakened, and the manager should not be overly concerned with a minuscule loss of revenue sources.
Because the manager is equally concerned with viewership, knowing the type of complaints is necessary. Often, complaints come from the most devoted viewers; simultaneously, viewership from less devoted viewers may have increased. That being said, it would be domineering that the most devoted viewers should dictate what the television station devotes its time to on the late-night news program. It has interested the less devoted viewers and, therefore, increased viewership. That should seem fine, right? The television station can determine the type of complaints by seeing the number of hours each household tunes in to its late-night news program. The ones with more hours would be considered "most devoted"; the ones with less and that only started watching would be considered "less devoted." Knowing this information would either weaken the argument because an increase in the less devoted viewers would compel the television station to continue--and even expand--its late-night news program.
The manager may even want to consider what the intentions of the late-night news program are. Does it intend to provide a more balanced news program? Does the television station want to give more information on the local and national news? If that is the case, increased time to national news is reasonable. In order to strengthen the argument, evidence needs to be given regarding what its intention was, and if the television station were simply looking to change things up, the argument would be weakened.
It is clear that the manager is concerned with viewership and advertising revenue. If he/she were not, he/she would not have written this memorandum. That being said, evidence needs to be provided to strengthen the manager's argument. As it stands, there is not enough evidence to return the late-night news program to its original focus. It must be clear why advertising contracts were canceled, whether the loss in advertising revenue is compensated or even something to be of concern, and if viewership has actually increased as a result of its changes. The manager may want to think about organizing a task force to answer these questions and any lingering ones in order to determine the best course of action. In addition, the television station should ask itself, "Is the manager self-concerned? Is s/he only interested in 'restoring the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level' because it would give him/her more time on-air?" All of these questions must be answered as well in order to use this memorandum usefully.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- duplicated to argument 1
argument 3 -- not 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: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 36 15
No. of Words: 774 350
No. of Characters: 3957 1500
No. of Different Words: 270 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.275 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.112 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.708 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 303 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 265 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 160 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 110 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.021 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.556 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.298 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.475 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 394, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'businesses'' or 'business's'?
Suggestion: businesses'; business's
...t, without evidence regarding the local businesses behavior, its viewers complaints, and t...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...expand--its late-night news program. The manager may even want to consider what ...
^^^
Line 11, column 216, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
... needs to be provided to strengthen the managers argument. As it stands, there is not en...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, firstly, however, if, look, may, regarding, so, then, therefore, well, even so, in addition, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 44.0 19.6327345309 224% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 26.0 12.9520958084 201% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 80.0 28.8173652695 278% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 89.0 55.5748502994 160% => OK
Nominalization: 27.0 16.3942115768 165% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 4117.0 2260.96107784 182% => OK
No of words: 762.0 441.139720559 173% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.40288713911 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.25398396302 4.56307096286 115% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89512763817 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 292.0 204.123752495 143% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.383202099738 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1264.5 705.55239521 179% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 13.0 4.96107784431 262% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 10.0 2.70958083832 369% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 33.0 19.7664670659 167% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 76.2106452053 57.8364921388 132% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.757575758 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0909090909 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.84848484848 5.70786347227 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.381618072865 0.218282227539 175% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.117460584304 0.0743258471296 158% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0955004953662 0.0701772020484 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.232646445839 0.128457276422 181% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0815511782672 0.0628817314937 130% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.34 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 161.0 98.500998004 163% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.