Topic:
"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 advising director of the Super Screen Movie production Company concludes that the company's advertising budget needs to be pumped up based off the fact that, despite an increase in positive reviews, fewer people attended movies produced by Super Screen. However, her argument is flawed; though it is possible that advertising could help increase attendance, she is unwise to decide that the low attendance is entirely due to a lack of awareness.
The first issue with the director's argument comes from her lack of specificity about the reviews for the company's movies. She does not say who reviewed the movies this year or in past years. She does not say how many people reviewed them or if the reviewers changed. It is possible, then, that widely-read publications stopped reviewing these articles. Perhaps the ratings went up, but if movies in previous years were reviewed in the New York Times and movies this year are reviewed only on blogs, the tone of the reviews would not matter.
She also ignores any other potential factors that could lead to a slip in viewership. In recent years services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime have rendered the movie theater experience almost arcane. Perhaps these websites have been pulling down Super Screen's attendance; after all, theaters across the country and across the world have folded under the pressure of high-quality movies available for streaming. Maybe the Super Screen movies this year starred fewer famous actors than in previous years. Maybe last year they produced a big-budget action movie and have only produced nature documentaries this year. The advertising director does not specify any such things that could lead to a dip in views, and her lack of specificity weakens her argument.
Finally, the director does not specifically quote any reviews from this year or past years to give a sense of the movies' quality. Perhaps this year has seen an increase in positive reviews, but the reviews in past years could have been very bad. If that is the case, and if this year saw more neutral reviews than bad ones, then the company should continue to focus its energy on the quality of the movies it produces.
The vagueness of language in this memo is the biggest flaw with the director's argument. She should provide specific examples of how positive the reviews have been, and she should consider why specific movies from these years may have done well or flopped. Saying that the movies are "good quality" based on an increase in positive reviews means nothing if we do not consider who wrote those reviews. She blames the public's lack of awareness but does not consider the possibility that those who are aware of these movies still may choose not to go for a variety of reasons.
None of these points preclude poor advertising as a factor in the low attendance the company saw this year. However, neither do they prove that the advertising budget needs to be increased. The advertising director should examine the company's roster of movies and the sources of the reviews, then readjust accordingly.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
flaws:
the arguments are not right on the points.
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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: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 515 350
No. of Characters: 2510 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.764 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.874 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.418 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 182 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.391 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.042 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.652 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.327 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.555 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.169 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 26, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
... awareness. The first issue with the directors argument comes from her lack of specifi...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 69, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
... this memo is the biggest flaw with the directors argument. She should provide specific e...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, so, still, then, well, after all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2581.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 515.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01165048544 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.763781212 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.50106886379 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 243.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.471844660194 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 798.3 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.8699403689 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.217391304 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.3913043478 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.91304347826 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.266750300071 0.218282227539 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.081702486839 0.0743258471296 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0653287673253 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.148864054963 0.128457276422 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0471746520437 0.0628817314937 75% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.07 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.13 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.