A pet food company recalled 4 million pounds of pet food in response to complaints that pets that had consumed the food experienced vomiting, lethargy, and other signs of illness. After the recall, the pet food company tested samples from the recalled food and determined that all chemicals found in the food were chemicals that are approved for use in pet food. Thus, the recalled food was not responsible for these symptoms, and the company should not devote further resources to the investigation.
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The given argument suggests that a pet food company recalled 4 million pounds of pet food in response to complaints that pets that had consumed the food experienced vomiting, lethargy, and other signs of illness. After the recall and further testing of the samples it was found that the recalled food was not responsible for these symptoms, and hence the company decided not to devote further resources to the investigation. There are several assumptions to be examined in this argument. We expound on each of them in the text ahead.
Firstly, the argument does not mention whether the amount of chemicals present was ideal and approved for pet food. It mentions that the chemicals were approved but the quantities in which they must be consumed is not mentioned here. Hence, it is possible that they are present in excess and thus affect the health of pets. So the possible assumption here is that the chemicals were present in a quantity within acceptable limits for the pets. If this assumption is proven unwarranted then the pet food company is liable for legal action due to damage to pets' health and can possibly face indictment. This will also tarnish and besmirch their reputation and incur heavy losses for the company.
Next, it assumes that all pets had a secondary reason for declining health since the pet food seemed comestible. It overlooks the common symptoms and their ubiquity. After further tests by the food and drug association, if the company is found culpable of overlooking important indicators just to preserve its brand and image then again there are chances of facing huge losses as well as undergoing trials.
In addition to the above assumptions, the pet food company also believes that the test results are veracious and not tampered with. It is always a possibility that the tests carried out might be faulty or not up to the mark, hence if this assumption is proven unwarranted then the company witnesses a possibility of losing its license.
Moreover, the pet food company assumes that any amount of consumption of pet food is innocuous and hence should not affect the pets. Since, the pet food contains chemicals there is supposed to be an upper limit after which the concentration of chemicals can prove to be lethal for the pet's health. If this assumption is proven unwarranted then the company will have to run a series of tests to ensure that a proper serving of pet food is suggested, and ensure that this serving amount does not have any adverse effect on the pets.
Hence, we have highlighted a few assumptions of the pet food company which can be summarized as follows:
1. Chemicals were present in a quantity within acceptable limits for the pets.
2. All pets had a secondary reason for declining health since the pet food seemed comestible.
3. The test results are truthful and not tampered with.
4. Any amount of consumption of pet food is innocuous and hence should not affect the pets.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
flaws:
1. the arguments are not exactly right on the point. Here goes a sample:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/pet-food-company-r…
2. don't need a summary at the conclusion.
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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: 26 15
No. of Words: 502 350
No. of Characters: 2387 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.733 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.755 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.569 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 124 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.308 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.528 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.538 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.296 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.481 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.057 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 556, Rule ID: TO_NON_BASE[1]
Message: The verb after "to" should be in the base form: 'pet'.
Suggestion: pet
...iable for legal action due to damage to pets health and can possibly face indictment...
^^^^
Line 3, column 572, Rule ID: MAY_COULD_POSSIBLY[1]
Message: Use simply 'can'.
Suggestion: can
...action due to damage to pets health and can possibly face indictment. This will also tarnish...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 286, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'pets'' or 'pet's'?
Suggestion: pets'; pet's
...hemicals can prove to be lethal for the pets health. If this assumption is proven un...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, look, moreover, second, so, then, thus, well, in addition, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2454.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 502.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 4.88844621514 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7334296765 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.62228581862 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 206.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.410358565737 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 747.9 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.0228427738 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.695652174 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8260869565 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.65217391304 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 10.0 5.15768463074 194% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.512925621784 0.218282227539 235% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.160194647142 0.0743258471296 216% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.182828731479 0.0701772020484 261% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.233419000911 0.128457276422 182% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.16561618134 0.0628817314937 263% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.08 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.