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 advertising director in his memo claims that the viewership of Super Screen-produced movies has dwindled over the past year. In order to buoy their business interests, he intends to allocate a greater share of the company's budget to advertising and promotions. The argument suffer from multiple logical inconsistencies and is seemingly based on a report whose contents appear largely circumspect.
The fallacies in the advertising director's argument are twofold. Firstly, the director claims that fewer people attended Super Screen produced movies in the preceding year than any other year. However, he fails to indicate whether this downward spiral has been a consistent trend or an isolated occurrence. If it were a one-off observation, then it is more likely to have been caused by a specific policy decision taken that year. On the other hand, a uniformly low attendance over a longer period of indicates a serious dip in quality. In order to confirm the veracity of this observation, the number of people watching our movies more than once needs to be quantified. With that information, it will be possible for us to identify our key consumer demographic and address their concerns specifically.
Secondly, the memo claims that specific movies produced by the company have received positive reviews from movie critics. The report however, does not go into the details of the number and genre of movies that have attracted audience approbation. In addition, the size and characteristics of the survey sample have not been indicated. Since different people consume entertainment differently, such variations are to be accepted. One should therefore exercise restraint when dealing with reports of this kind as they are susceptible to overestimation or statistical bias. The advertising director should ascertain whether all movies produced by the company have garnered accolades from critics. If there is an unequal distribution in acceptance, then it is an indictment of the content and not the promotion of the movies. The nature and expertise of these reviewers should also be considered before making an impulsive decision. A critic belonging to a renowned publishing house influences a larger section of people. Sweeping claims about the inadequate promotion of the movies should therefore be avoided.
Furthermore, the memo's conclusive statement appears to be short-sighted and facile. A problem such as poor viewership or consumption needs to addressed at multiple levels. If indeed there are certain movies which are generating positive responses from the audience, then the production of such movies needs to be prioritized by the company. Repeat screening of these movies should be encouraged. An overarching approach to advertising can often have deleterious consequences. Care should be taken by advertisers to ensure that only good movies receive a lion's share of promotional resources and expenditure.
In the absence of robust and actionable data on viewership, it is imprudent to allow such knee-jerk decisions. The problem needs to be analyzed further and contentious issues need to be summarily identified. It is therefore unwise for us to go on a limb and bolster our advertising expenditure.
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: 29 15
No. of Words: 502 350
No. of Characters: 2673 1500
No. of Different Words: 267 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.733 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.325 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.022 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 223 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 166 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 129 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 87 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.31 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.625 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.517 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.253 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.432 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.058 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, in addition, such as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2729.0 2260.96107784 121% => OK
No of words: 502.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.43625498008 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7334296765 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.11624402284 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 266.0 204.123752495 130% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.529880478088 0.468620217663 113% => OK
syllable_count: 872.1 705.55239521 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 25.2937557211 57.8364921388 44% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 94.1034482759 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.3103448276 23.324526521 74% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.51724137931 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.311798669 0.218282227539 143% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0750928041403 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0964554975365 0.0701772020484 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169452751051 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0792420295495 0.0628817314937 126% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 45.76 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.98 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.54 8.32208582834 115% => OK
difficult_words: 161.0 98.500998004 163% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => 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.