“Over the past year, our late night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this time period, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station’s coverage of local and weather news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news programs have just cancelled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level.”
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The memorandum says that restore the time devoted to weather and local news would attract viewers and avoid losing advertising revenues for the television station is strengthened by several convincing evidence at first glance, but further reflection reveals that these evidences not successfully constitute a logical statement in support of its conclusion.
To begin with, the author asserts that most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with the coverage of weather and local news, so that increasing their time would attract more audience. Although it makes sense to some extent, it is quite possible that the number of the complaints is equal or even lower than before, which means the larger group of people audience is more satisfied by the new arrange of programs. Moreover, even though the number of complaints grows higher, it would be more convincing that these complaints come from people who watch the TV station, which means the viewer is increasing, since no one complains to a TV station he or she never even watched before. Until the author provides further clue to exclude all these possibilities, it is unfounded to reach the author's conclusion straightly.
The article's reliance on restoring the time to avoid losing revenues is also problematic in to respects. First, there's no evidence that local businesses canceled their contract because of the new program arrangement. It is equllay likely that they realized that late-night news is not a good choice for them, since their customs have a reguar lifestyle, which leads them to put money on prime time show. Admittedly, business people see profit as the most important thing, so that if sales decline, they may consider that they have made wrong decisions. However, the profit of an advertisement comes to show up later usually. And the past year's change could not lead to cancelling of the contracts this year, because a long term analyse is needed. Without ruling out this possibility, the conclusion is not defensible.
Finally, the author’s assumption that going back to the old arrange can attract new viewer and avoid losing advertising revenues is still unwarranted. It is much more possible that the new viewers and businesses who are attracted by the national news may be lost under this situation. Therefore, before we arrive to that conclusion, a more complete understanding of viewers‘ and businesses‘ inclination would be helpful.
In conclusion, the business manager fails to adequately support the conclusion. To strengthen the argument, the author must provide dear evidence about the viewer number now, and the reason of cancelling contract from the businesses. To better evaluate the argument, we need more information about the .
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/over-past-year-our…
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 439 350
No. of Characters: 2253 1500
No. of Different Words: 230 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.577 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.132 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.693 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 132 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.389 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.954 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.295 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.533 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 805, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ibilities, it is unfounded to reach the authors conclusion straightly. The articles ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 5, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'articles'' or 'article's'?
Suggestion: articles'; article's
...e authors conclusion straightly. The articles reliance on restoring the time to avoid...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 113, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: there's
...also problematic in to respects. First, theres no evidence that local businesses cance...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 299, Rule ID: THE_SENT_END[1]
Message: Did you forget something after 'the'?
...rgument, we need more information about the .
^^^^^
Line 9, column 302, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...ment, we need more information about the .
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, moreover, so, still, then, therefore, in conclusion, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2326.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 439.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29840546697 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.57737117129 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88038034105 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 241.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.548974943052 0.468620217663 117% => OK
syllable_count: 711.0 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 72.8320408395 57.8364921388 126% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.222222222 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.3888888889 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.16666666667 5.70786347227 108% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.133911498006 0.218282227539 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0369950016427 0.0743258471296 50% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0638907607223 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0763997970098 0.128457276422 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0535048534492 0.0628817314937 85% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.3799401198 109% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.76 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.89 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 113.0 98.500998004 115% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.