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 claims that Super Screen must create more public awareness about its movies and therefore, should allocate a greater share for advertising next year. The argument presents evidence that supports this claim including a report about fewer people attending Super Screen-produced movies last year despite the increase in the percentage of positive reviews by movie reviewers. However, upon careful inspection, we can observe that the evidence provides little credible support to the director's conclusion. Hence, the argument can be considered unsubstantiated and flawed.
First of all, the advertising director readily assumes that the increase in the percentage of positive reviews by movie reviewers definitely reflects the quality of Super Screen movies, but does not provide additional supporting evidence to corroborate his claim. For instance, there are several thousands of online movie reviewers today that we cannot be sure if each review is credible. Further, there are reviewers who do paid promotions for a movie. Therefore, the argument will be more convincing if it shed more light upon how the movies were perceived by the majority of the audience.
Further, the advertising director claims that the problem does not lie with the quality of the Super Screen movies but with lack of public awareness that movies of good quality are available. This again is a weak and unsupported claim as it does not demonstrate the clear correlation between the two events. For instance, people might not like the movie for several reasons such as a personal preference. The director's claim that this happened only because of the lack of public awareness is not supported by evidence enough. Therefore, the advertising director's assumption could produce adverse results.
Additionally, the advertising director notes that a greater share of its next year budget must be allocated to reach public through advertising. However, he does not present the current share of the budget that has been allocated for advertising. In addition, the argument does not present instances that prove that he has considered all the possible options before taking this decision, that advertising is the only way to improve public reach. The argument must answer all of these questions to better understand the problem at hand and make an informed decision.
In conclusion, the argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To support his claim, the argument must provide strong supporting evidence such as the credibility of movie reviews, quality of the Super Screen movies and a survey of what people currently expect in Super Screen movies.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- not exactly
argument 3 -- OK
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samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/following-taken-me…
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 413 350
No. of Characters: 2186 1500
No. of Different Words: 187 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.508 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.293 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.74 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.737 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.949 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.543 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.138 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 505, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...provides little credible support to the directors conclusion. Hence, the argument can be ...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, hence, however, if, so, therefore, for instance, in addition, in conclusion, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2237.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 413.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.41646489104 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50803742585 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81773828752 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.47215496368 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 702.0 705.55239521 99% => 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: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => 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: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 57.3935724682 57.8364921388 99% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.736842105 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.7368421053 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.78947368421 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.218638900945 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0693976587479 0.0743258471296 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0809155248736 0.0701772020484 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.14452982244 0.128457276422 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0718223561553 0.0628817314937 114% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => 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: 14.16 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.12 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.