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 following argument is flawed for several reasons. Primarily, the argument is based on an unwarranted assumption that only chemicals used in the food are responsible for several signs of illness in the pets, rendering its main conclusion, that the company should not devote further resources to the investigation invalid.
The argument fails to provide any justification about the amount of chemicals used in the pet food. For one, there is a possibility that the consumption of these chemical are not harmful for pets up to certain amount. But, when the amount is exceeded, the pets may experience vomiting, lethargy, and other signs of illness. The argument would have been stronger had it provided information regarding the amount of chemicals used in making pet food. Even then, the argument had to prove that the amount of chemicals used in making pet food is suitable for all animals to consume and not just certain breeds of animals.
The argument also leaves many other unanswered questions. It does not state anything about the serving size of the food. Each animal should be given different serving size to keep them healthy. There is a possibility that the serving size mentioned in the pet food package is greater than what pets should ideally consume. And, as breeds of animals are different, their body requirement for food is also different. Thus, The serving size for all the animals given in the package should be different. for example, For a Husky dog, the serving size should be different when compared to the serving size for a pit bull dog.
Finally, The argument claims without warrant that they should not devote further resources to the investigation. If all the possible reasons for the symptoms mentioned above are not true, then too, 4 million pound of pet food is a very large quantity and hence, the probability of the food inducing these illness symptoms is very high. The pet food company should not just investigate about the chemicals used, they should dig deeper into the investigation and help the pets and in turn keep their customers happy. for example, they could also investigate about the authenticity of the food being sold in the market. There is a possibility that there is an illegal derivative of their product in the market which is being bought by the pet owners.
Because the argument does not account for all the possible reasons for illness symptoms in pets, it fails to make a convincing case that the company should not devote further resources to the investigation.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/pet-food-company-r…
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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: 424 350
No. of Characters: 2054 1500
No. of Different Words: 170 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.538 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.844 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.58 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 145 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 115 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 68 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 44 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.556 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.838 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.369 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.583 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 501, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: For
...ven in the package should be different. for example, For a Husky dog, the serving s...
^^^
Line 7, column 517, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: For
...and in turn keep their customers happy. for example, they could also investigate ab...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, hence, if, may, regarding, so, then, thus, for example, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2113.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 424.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 4.98349056604 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.53775939005 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6464313562 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 180.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.424528301887 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 656.1 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.1341918976 57.8364921388 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.65 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.2 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.45 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.286689679904 0.218282227539 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.104501032893 0.0743258471296 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0871605139183 0.0701772020484 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.157132598646 0.128457276422 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0986933438192 0.0628817314937 157% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => 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: 11.6 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.4 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
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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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.