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 I n 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 argument recommends that due to lack of awareness among the public 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. To support this recommendation the advertising director of the Production Company reveals the examples of leap faith and poor reasoning. Also, it fails to mention several key factors by which it could be evaluated. Hence the argument is unconvincing.
The major lacuna is the lack of statistics and data required to justify the recent report from the marketing department. Fewer people refer to what number of people from the population that regularly watches movies. Also, there is no mention of any data of the other past years as well, which can be used to compare the data for the given report. An accurate survey should cover the big and wide range of case studies to be valid and actual.
Second, another argument is that the phrase “percentage of positive reviews” represents people from what age group, whether the reviewers are frequent movie watchers or occasional ones. Also, there is no mention of the types of movies released, to which this specific memo refers to. Whether this memo belongs to theatrical, drama, fictional, non-fictional, romantic, comedy or any other domain.
Third, it is preposterous to come to this conclusion that super Screen should allocate a greater share of its budget next year to reaching the public through advertising. It is a post-hoc fallacy that since the people lack awareness that movies of good quality are available, therefore they should allocate a greater share of their budget on advertising. But this is vague. Firstly, how can one conclude that the movies are actually of good quality, despite the improper data mentioned above? Secondly, there can be other reasons for why the public is not watching such movies. Maybe the month, in which the movies are being released, is February, which mainly focuses on romantic movies since it is considered to be Valentine's month. Also according to one of the recent statistics stated in an article in Hindustan Times, movie halls are flooded with younger generation during the month of February.
All in all, the argument is flawed for the reasons mentioned and is, therefore, unpersuasive. It could considerably be strengthened if proper evidence is given with accurate statistics related to the survey, other alternatives are being considered, proper conclusion are being stated and clearly mentioning the data related to the types of movies released, age group of the reviewers, actions taken for improvement etcetera.
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: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 430 350
No. of Characters: 2172 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.554 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.051 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.636 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.23 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.286 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.457 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.036 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 455, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...factors by which it could be evaluated. Hence the argument is unconvincing. The ma...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 736, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...t is considered to be Valentines month. Also according to one of the recent statisti...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2250.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 430.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.23255813953 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55372829156 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8067985146 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.495348837209 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 711.0 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.6611971932 57.8364921388 119% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.5 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.15 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.219187390795 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.058675189711 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0539004212577 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.114627783552 0.128457276422 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0481951259466 0.0628817314937 77% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.05 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.