The following appeared in a memorandum from the manager of KNOW radio station.
"Several factors indicate that KNOW radio can no longer succeed as a rock-and-roll music station. Consider, for example, that the number of people in our listening area over fifty years of age has increased dramatically, while our total number of listeners has declined. Also, music stores in our area report decreased sales of rock-and-roll music. Finally, continuous news stations in neighboring cities have been very successful. We predict that switching KNOW radio from rock-and-roll music to 24-hour news will allow the station to attract older listeners and make KNOW radio more profitable than ever."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction 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 prediction.
In the memorandum, the manager of KNOW radio station predicts that if KNOW radio station switches from rock-and-roll music to 24-hour news will allow the station to attract older listeners and increase profit of the KNOW radio station more than ever. The manager has reported evidences of decreasing number of rock-and-roll music listeners in the listening area, decreased sales of rock-and-roll music in the music stores and success of continuous news stations in neighboring cities. However, before deciding whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable, satisfactory answers must be provided to these following three specific questions.
First of all, has the number of listeners of rock-and-roll music in the listening area fallen significantly? The manager, without any evidence, assumes that the number of music listeners has decreased a lot. He has not provided any idea of the decreased number of listeners in the listening area. However, this may not be the case. It is quite likely that the number of music listeners has reduced to only 2 percent. It means if about 100 people used to hear the rock-and-roll music in the previous years, then over the fifty years the number has fallen to only 98. It is not a significant decrease to worry about. Moreover, if the number was reduced to 20 from 1000, then it would be a significant decline in the number of music listeners. The manager has failed to provide any evidence regarding this and so the argument is seriously flawed.
Secondly, are the sellers of the rock-and-roll music produced by KNOW radio station of the town reliable? The author prematurely assumes that the sellers of the music are not responsible for the decline in sales. In reality, this may not be the case. It is quite possible that the sellers at those music stores are convincing their customers to buy another type of music and they are apathetic to sell rock-and-roll music. The customers are being influenced by them and are avoiding buying rock-and-roll music presciently. The manager has failed to provide any evidence of this case and so the argument does not hold water.
Finally, will the 24-hour news attract the listeners living in the listening area of KNOW station? The manager, without any evidence, supposes that this news program will attract the listeners without facing any difficulties. However, this may not be true. It is very much possible that the news program will be very much tiresome and too much boring. The listeners will easily become bored hearing those all the time. If this is the case, then allowing the radio station to broadcast 24 hour news will not have the desired effect. The argument fails to address this and so is seriously flawed.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands, is seriously flawed as it relies on unwarranted assumptions which may turn out to be invalid. If the manager is able to provide satisfactory answers to the above stated three questions and provide enough evidences for supporting those, then the argument can be evaluated properly and the prediction whether it is reasonable or not can be taken into consideration. Otherwise the argument will remain strongly flawed as it appears on surface.
Comments
e-rater score report
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: 28 15
No. of Words: 535 350
No. of Characters: 2632 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.809 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.92 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.709 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 189 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 153 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.107 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.166 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.308 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.487 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 213, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
... older listeners and increase profit of the KNOW radio station more than ever. The manag...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 567, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...years the number has fallen to only 98. It is not a significant decrease to worry ...
^^
Line 9, column 408, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Otherwise,
...or not can be taken into consideration. Otherwise the argument will remain strongly flawe...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2700.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 535.0 441.139720559 121% => OK
Chars per words: 5.04672897196 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.80937282943 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78343175907 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 218.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.407476635514 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 843.3 705.55239521 120% => 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: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 59.8112144798 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.4285714286 119.503703932 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.1071428571 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.92857142857 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.335360716947 0.218282227539 154% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0887829095344 0.0743258471296 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.104304779024 0.0701772020484 149% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.194817665846 0.128457276422 152% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.127197103028 0.0628817314937 202% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.01 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.59 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
---------------------
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.