Two years ago, radio station WCQP in Rockville decided to increase the number of call-in advice programs that it broadcast; since that time, its share of the radio audience in the Rockville listening area has increased significantly. Given WCQP's recent success with call-in advice programming, and citing a nationwide survey indicating that many radio listeners are quite interested in such programs, the station manager of KICK in Medway recommends that KICK include more call-in advice programs in an attempt to gain a larger audience share in its listening area.
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 manager of the radio station of KICK in Medway suggests that they should broadcast more programs related to call-in advice in order to absorb more listeners given the fact that the radio station in Rockville increased the number of listeners through a similar program and a survey showed the interest of people in such these programs. However, this conclusion cannot be accepted as it is in that rests on a number of premises all of which can be challenged in one way or another.
The first problem with the argument is that the writer assumes the increase in the number of audiences two years ago was due to broadcasting more call-in advice programs. However, there is no evidence to show the exact reason for rising the number of listeners of that radio station. Maybe the quality of other programs increased, hence people were fonder of listening to the radio in comparison to the previous time, or the radio hired a DJ in who people were interested.
Another issue with the argument would be the survey that the writer refers to but does not mention how many people took part in the study reported. Maybe in the study only ten people participated and the population of Rockville was more than one million, therefore the findings of such a survey are neither reliable nor valid. Even if it is assumed that enough people took part in the study, there is still another problem with the sample. In this argument, there is no evidence to show whether the sample used was representative of the target population. Maybe all of them were psychology students or all of them were young women who are not suitable samples of all the townsmen.
The third problem with the argument would be the probable different tastes of people in Rockville and Medway. People in Rockville may like getting advice through radio programs but maybe Medway people are more interested in listening to music. In addition, the number of call-in advice programs rose two years ago and maybe at that time people were fond of these programs and now they are no more interested in such programs.
In conclusion, the manager's recommendation cannot be taken to be correct because as was shown in the body paragraphs above, it depends on a number of assumptions each of which is questionable. Gaining the same result in Medway like what has happened in the radio station WCQP can only be accepted if the weaknesses already referred to are all removed.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 419 350
No. of Characters: 1973 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.524 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.709 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.482 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 145 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 101 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 65 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.933 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.241 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.369 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.613 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.104 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 20, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...in such programs. In conclusion, the managers recommendation cannot be taken to be co...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, hence, however, if, may, so, still, therefore, third, in addition, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2012.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 419.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.80190930788 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52432199235 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.55305458817 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 187.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.44630071599 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 639.9 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.4045325061 57.8364921388 96% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.133333333 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.9333333333 23.324526521 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.13333333333 5.70786347227 107% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.273314662852 0.218282227539 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0921648912776 0.0743258471296 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0947669459564 0.0701772020484 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.172422495474 0.128457276422 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.107137776229 0.0628817314937 170% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.1 14.3799401198 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 48.3550499002 109% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 12.197005988 103% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.86 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.18 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.0 12.3882235529 137% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.