"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.
In the memo that appeared at Super Screen Movie Production Company, the author claims that Super Screen should allocate a greater share of its budget in advertising as their movies have not been able to reach its viewers. He advocates his claim by positing that the number of viewers have decreased from last year even though positive reviews of the movies have increased. Thus concluding that the quality of movies is not the problem. At first instance, his claim sounds very cogent and pursuing, but a scrutinizing look reveals that the author has made some unwarranted assumptions and lacks evidence to support his claim. To make his position stronger he needs to answer three questions.
Firstly, what percentage less people visited movies compared to last year? As it might be possible that a very minute amout of people were decreased from last year which is very common in business as little up's and down's is acceptable. The author needs to provide statistical data about the number of people visited last years vs people visiting this year. Without such evidence and if the above case is true spending more on advertisement can be futile.
Furthermore, how many people rated the movie positively? If only a few 'die-heart' fans rated the movie positively than they don't speak for the entire populous. The author needs to provide evidence to show how many people were surveyed and how many people rated the movies positively compared to negative reviews. Without such evidence making any assumptions is unwarranted.
Moreover, are movies being pirated? As it is possible that though the movie production company is making good movies, the movie gets pirated and is available to the citizens easily. In such case, people will choose to spend a few dollars for the DVD and watch it at home rather than going to cinema theaters. If the above is true it significantly weakens the argument.
In conclusion, the author's argument to spend more on advertisement though is meant for the betterment of the company is flimsy and unwarranted. The author needs to answer the aforementioned questions in order to sound more pursuing. However, as it stands the argument is flawed.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/following-taken-me…
----------------------------
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: 363 350
No. of Characters: 1778 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.365 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.898 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.553 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 85 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 61 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 31 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.15 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.974 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.303 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.539 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.097 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 124, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ns rated the movie positively than they dont speak for the entire populous. The auth...
^^^^
Line 7, column 310, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...e rather than going to cinema theaters. If the above is true it significantly weak...
^^
Line 9, column 20, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ns the argument. In conclusion, the authors argument to spend more on advertisement...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, look, moreover, so, thus, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 12.9520958084 31% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1823.0 2260.96107784 81% => OK
No of words: 362.0 441.139720559 82% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.03591160221 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.36191444098 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64414862131 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.522099447514 0.468620217663 111% => OK
syllable_count: 566.1 705.55239521 80% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 50.5096772906 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 91.15 119.503703932 76% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.1 23.324526521 78% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.3 5.70786347227 75% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.20420394829 0.218282227539 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0569446514617 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0600551754204 0.0701772020484 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.100083765853 0.128457276422 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0571992459724 0.0628817314937 91% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.4 14.3799401198 79% => 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: 11.66 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 82.0 98.500998004 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.