In this memorandum, the manager asserts that recent replacement of butter with margarine had little impact on Happy Pancake House’s customers because a little percent of customers complain about it or just ignore it. However, there are at least three alternative explanations that can cogently account for the same result.
First of all, the fact that only 2 percent of customers have complained cannot guarantee that the other 98 percent of customers do feel delighted in the replacement. On the contrary, it is perfectly reasonable that most of the customers are not satisfied with the margarine, but they decide not to complain about it. This may be due to the restaurants’ complex feedback procedure which would take customers a lot of time to fill many forms, and those customers do not want to waste their time on a small issue. In addition, they may choose not to go to Happy Pancake House anymore instead of complaining about the replacement. Without ruling out these probabilities, the author’s statement is by no means convincing.
Moreover, it is possible that many customers are not aware of this change since this change is “new” so that only 2 percent of customers have complained about it. To be more specific, some people may feel different tastes, but they think it results from a different cook who is not familiar with the particular cooking procedure of this restaurant. But as time goes by, they will perceive this change in the future. And at that time, they may get angry about the restaurant because they are not informed about this change before they purchase it. If this is the case, it would make the manager’s explanation less persuasive.
Finally, the author concludes that a lot of customers who ask butter but receive margarine do not complain because they do not perceive this change or their “butter” refers to either the butter or the margarine. However, these customers do not complain may also stem from that they are conscious about this change and think highly of it. Precisely speaking, it is possible that they indeed ask for the real butter first and get the margarine instead. But after they taste it, they notice the difference and feel it is better than before. So, there is no need to complain but appreciate it. If this is the case, it would impeccably rival the author’s explanation.
To sum up, although it is reasonable that customers’ ignorance and satisfaction to the replacement of the Happy Pancake House restaurants account for the little impact to the customers, there are also several alternative explanations, which could challenge the author’s conclusion, can plausibly result in the facts presented in the memorandum.
- The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants Recently butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States This change however has had little impact 68
- TPO21 integrated 80
- TOEFL T P O 48 Integrated Writing Task 3
- The following appeared in a health newsletter A ten year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets whereas today that numbe 57
- A recently issued twenty year study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia investigated the possible therapeutic effect of consuming salicylates Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin a medicine used to treat headaches 62
e-rater score 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: 19 15
No. of Words: 447 350
No. of Characters: 2177 1500
No. of Different Words: 193 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.598 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.87 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.667 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 115 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.526 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.495 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.895 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.315 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.512 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.037 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, moreover, so, at least, in addition, first of all, on the contrary, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 56.0 28.8173652695 194% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2266.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 447.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.06935123043 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.59808378696 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.83025438337 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 204.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.456375838926 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 699.3 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.2670371654 57.8364921388 120% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.263157895 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.5263157895 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.42105263158 5.70786347227 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.220844752491 0.218282227539 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0718218615804 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0914303226265 0.0701772020484 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.161127618052 0.128457276422 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0856593134364 0.0628817314937 136% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.74 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 98.500998004 85% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => 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.