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 given argument is flawed for numerous reasons. On a casual read, the argument looks valid, but on careful scrutiny, a number of flaws come in.The flaws being- the validity of the 'report' and the quality of films. Hence, the truth of the argument is limited.
First, the argument relies on the recent report. The veracity of this report is in question. In what conditions was this report done? What about the nature of the people surveyed? They could be loyal to the production house or the question asked to them could have been manipulative to get a positive answer. The number of people surveyed could have been only from a film crazy area, like Mumbai, where people give the same reponse to a good movie as well as a bad movie. The report also says that less number of people watched. It is possible that the economy was down, and people just cut down on the expenses of films(like the 2008 recession) or the economy was good but people turned to other entertainment sources. With these unanswered questions, the report's validity is under question.
Second, the argument makes an unwarranted assumption about the quality of the films. The actors in the film might not be good in expressions or dialogue delivery. The amount of money invested in producing the film could have reduced. The direction, the music, the editing, the storyline and other elements of the films could have not appealed to the viewers and they could have stopped watching the production house's films. In this case, more dollars need to be invested in the film's quality and not on advertising the movies. Even if one vouches for the quality of the films, the number of films released could have peaked to an all time high in the past year, resulting in a reduction in per film viewreship. There could have been another great sporting events which attracted all the attention, like FIFA world cup and less people watched the movies. The details of these need to be known before reaching a conclusion.
Finally, the argument does not throw light on the amount of budget already allocated to advertising and creating awareness. It could already be too high. It also says that a greater share should be allocated to advertising, but does not comment by what margin. Will the allocation be doubled or tripled or what fraction of the total buget expenses be given to allocation?
In the end, the argument considers a number of assumptions but gives no evidence to back them, does not assume cases where the problem could be elsewhere, in their control or beyond their reach. Thus, the memo given is not valid.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
flaws:
the arguments are not on the right track. Here goes a sample:
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: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 449 350
No. of Characters: 2080 1500
No. of Different Words: 211 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.603 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.633 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.369 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 98 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 32 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.269 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.749 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.462 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.269 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.468 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
The essay is good. I think it
The essay is good. I think it should get 4.5-5. I do not get what does it mean that the arguments are not on the right track???
It means the arguments are
It means the arguments are not addressed properly. Compare the sample essay and see the differences.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 147, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: The
...ful scrutiny, a number of flaws come in.The flaws being- the validity of the repor...
^^^
Line 1, column 150, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... scrutiny, a number of flaws come in.The flaws being- the validity of the report ...
^^
Line 3, column 756, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'reports'' or 'report's'?
Suggestion: reports'; report's
...s. With these unanswered questions, the reports validity is under question. Second, ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 235, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... producing the film could have reduced. The direction, the music, the editing, the ...
^^^
Line 5, column 484, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...dollars need to be invested in the films quality and not on advertising the movie...
^^^
Line 6, column 314, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...vents which attracted all the attention, like FIFA world cup and less people watc...
^^
Line 6, column 340, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...the attention, like FIFA world cup and less people watched the movies. The details ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, if, look, second, so, thus, well, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2146.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 448.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 4.79017857143 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.60065326758 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.46130772442 2.78398813304 88% => OK
Unique words: 219.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.488839285714 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 659.7 705.55239521 94% => 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: 22.0 8.76447105788 251% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 53.9930962056 57.8364921388 93% => OK
Chars per sentence: 82.5384615385 119.503703932 69% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.2307692308 23.324526521 74% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.0 5.70786347227 53% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0830908977219 0.218282227539 38% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0249102672456 0.0743258471296 34% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0281498762166 0.0701772020484 40% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0362385217914 0.128457276422 28% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0411524145158 0.0628817314937 65% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.7 14.3799401198 67% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.68 48.3550499002 130% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 12.197005988 71% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.21 12.5979740519 81% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.15 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 5.5 12.3882235529 44% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
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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It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.