The following is taken from a memo from the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company.
"According to a recent report from our marketing department, during the past year, fewer people attended Super Screen-produced movies than in any other year. And yet the percentage of positive reviews by movie reviewers about specific Super Screen movies actually increased during the past year. Clearly, the contents of these reviews are not reaching enough of our prospective viewers. Thus, the problem lies not with the quality of our movies but with the public's lack of awareness that movies of good quality are available. Super Screen should therefore allocate a greater share of its budget next year to reaching the public through advertising."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author in the argument stem contends that a fewer audience as turned up this year who attended the Super Screen produced movies than in any other year, he also claims that its not the problem with the quality of the movies but the issue is that these movies are not reaching the perspective viewers. Hence by allocating a greater share towards the marketing or advertising their movies, the advertising director claims to reach a wider group of the audience. The assertion made by the author is based on premises which are incomplete and can be falsified on several grounds.
Firstly, the authors claim that the number of viewers are less this year could be because the count of the movies this year produced by Super screen productions is lesser than the number produced previously. This clearly indicates that if that data is not taken into account , increasing the budget on promotion will not make sense as the comparison done here is not taking into account the most important factor. It is possible that this year two movies were released which attracted ten thousand people, and last year eight movies attracted twelve tousand viewers. In such case promotion is not an issue and thus the author's claim is weakened.
In addition to this the percentage of positive viewers has increased which shows that the quality of movies was good but if the number od movies produced are less, how can it be compared with the previous years.
Secondly, it may not be a question of quality movies but the genre of movies that the production house is producing. There are myriad of examples in the film industry where even after promotions audience does not like the movie and it is a flop at the box office. Let us recall any oscar winning movies like "The Shape of water" which even after promotions and good content could not attract enough audience, because the taste of general public does not lie in such categories. Many people want to watch movies so that it can entertain them and get them out of the real life troubles, even if it is for sometime and watching dark and realistic movies may not appeal them as much.
Hence, the author's claim is not cogent as it fails to take into account several possibilities and is not supported by relevent and sufficient data which leads to several loop holes in his argument and several ways to attack and lay his argument indefensible.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/following-taken-me…
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 415 350
No. of Characters: 1937 1500
No. of Different Words: 208 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.513 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.667 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.364 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 132 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 93 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 65 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 31 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 31.923 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.652 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.361 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.433 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 2 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 305, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...e not reaching the perspective viewers. Hence by allocating a greater share towards t...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 275, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...t if that data is not taken into account , increasing the budget on promotion will...
^^
Line 5, column 440, Rule ID: GENERAL_XX[1]
Message: Use simply 'public'.
Suggestion: public
...t enough audience, because the taste of general public does not lie in such categories. Many p...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, thus, in addition
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1980.0 2260.96107784 88% => OK
No of words: 415.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.77108433735 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51348521516 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.45287971534 2.78398813304 88% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.510843373494 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 612.9 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
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: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 31.0 22.8473053892 136% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 60.053329357 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 152.307692308 119.503703932 127% => OK
Words per sentence: 31.9230769231 23.324526521 137% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.30769230769 5.70786347227 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.213144378965 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0756038310728 0.0743258471296 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0738326918402 0.0701772020484 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.112193076711 0.128457276422 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0733750104126 0.0628817314937 117% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.0 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.47 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.98 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.26 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.4 11.1389221557 129% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
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.