The following is a recommendation from the Board of Directors of Monarch Books We recommend that Monarch Books open a caf in its store Monarch having been in business at the same location for more than twenty years has a large customer base because it is | TOEFL IELTS GMAT GRE SAT ACT PTE ESL

Essay topics:

The following is a recommendation from the Board of Directors of Monarch Books.
"We recommend that Monarch Books open a café in its store. Monarch, having been in business at the same location for more than twenty years, has a large customer base because it is known for its wide selection of books on all subjects. Clearly, opening the café would attract more customers. Space could be made for the café by discontinuing the children's book section, which will probably become less popular given that the most recent national census indicated a significant decline in the percentage of the population under age ten. Opening a café will allow Monarch to attract more customers and better compete with Regal Books, which recently opened its own café."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.

The prompt’s author suggests Monarch Books should open a café in its store. He or she cites several reasons, including the potential growth in the store’s customer base, current population trends, and the store’s enhanced ability to compete with Regal Books. While these seem to be convincing reasons, the author must address four key questions to determine the true impact this recommendation would have.

Firstly, does a national-level statistic apply to the city and population this bookstore caters to? The prompt indicates the author assumes it does as he/she argues removing the children’s book section would not damage the business given the cardinal percentage decline in this population. However, it is possible that this does not hold true. For instance, the trend may be the opposite in the bookstore’s city (i.e. children are expected to constitute a larger portion of the population). It is also possible that the store’s main source of revenue may be from this population. Should any of this hold any merit, then it is likely that discontinuing the children’s book section would be detrimental to the business. That is, the costs of doing so would potentially exceed the benefits of installing a café.

Secondly, one must also ask whether the bookstore’s owners and employees would be able to economically set up and run a café. The unstated assumption in the prompt is that they would have no difficulties in doing so. However, this is a facile and callow approach as several things must be considered. For instance, it is possible that the current employees do not have the skillset to run a café. Should this be the case, then additional employees must be hired. This also begs the question whether the financial and time-related costs of running the café would exceed the potential revenue gained from it. Until the financial costs of this café are better assessed, this recommendation’s viability cannot be assessed.

Furthermore, even if it were possible to set and run the café, would the bookstore’s current or potential customers buy from it? While the author assumes that people would make café-related purchases, this may not necessarily hold true. For instance, it is possible its current customers would have no desire to make use of the café. Perhaps, these customers only come for the variety of the books and the halcyon environment in the store. Hence, the café may potentially hurt the store’s peaceful environment given that it will likely create some noise pollution. This may be enough to drive away current and potential customers. Thus, we must first determine how customers would react to a café.

Finally, one must ask if there are better alternative ways to compete with Regal Books. The prompt only argues for a café. However, it is possible there are more lucrative methods to enhance Monarch’s business. It would seem the first step to doing so would be to conduct a survey that asks current and potential customers about how the store can better meet their needs. Perhaps the survey would reveal that the store should continue to focus on its main strength by widening its book collection. It is also possible that the store simply needs to better promote itself via social media or traditional methods (e.g. newspaper advertisements). Given these possibilities, constructing a café may not be necessarily be the most financially-wise decision for the store.

In summary, the argument, as it stands now, is flawed as it has not addressed four vital questions. However, if the author can answer these questions with pertinent evidence, then we can better assess the viability of his/her recommendation.

Votes

Essay Categories

GMAT/GRE Argument Task

Comments

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 479, Rule ID: WHETHER[5]
Message: Can you shorten this phrase to just 'whether', or rephrase the sentence to avoid "the question"?
Suggestion: whether
...employees must be hired. This also begs the question whether the financial and time-related costs of...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, e.g., finally, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, while, for instance, in summary

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 35.0 12.9520958084 270% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 59.0 28.8173652695 205% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3100.0 2260.96107784 137% => OK
No of words: 598.0 441.139720559 136% => OK
Chars per words: 5.18394648829 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94510247834 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89955368121 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 261.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.436454849498 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 929.7 705.55239521 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 16.0 4.96107784431 323% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 33.0 19.7664670659 167% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 35.7725700457 57.8364921388 62% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.9393939394 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.1212121212 23.324526521 78% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.24242424242 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 14.0 4.67664670659 299% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.180811956702 0.218282227539 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0545326280484 0.0743258471296 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0584997298669 0.0701772020484 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.106407535979 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0640739873495 0.0628817314937 102% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.75 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, e.g., finally, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, while, for instance, in summary

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments