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 recommendation to allocate a greater budget to advertising next year, in order to create public awareness about the availability of good quality movies, sounds reasonable to some extent. However, some questions need to be clarified before opting for it.
Firstly, the memo mentions that fewer people attended the company's movies last year, despite a higher percentage of positive reviews by movie reviewers about specific movies. It is important to note that the increase in positive reviews was for certain movies, and not all of them. It could be the case that the people who attended the movies this year, only saw the movies with higher positive reviews. In such a scenario, the public is actually aware of the movie reviewers' reviews and further expenditure on advertising would fail to achieve its purpose.
Secondly, information regarding, which movies received greater positive reviews and the change in number of people who attended those specific movies, needs to be correlated. Without such data, assuming a correlated or causal relationship could have erroneous results. People might not be interested in the movie reviewers' opinions at all. They might simply pick a movie based on their personal preferences or some other factor.
Thirdly, the memo assumes that there is no problem with the quality of the movies. However, the increase in positive reviews only for specific movies could indicate that the other movies were sub-standard or lacked originality. Thereby, people didn't attend those movies. Moreover, as the passage does not provide information regarding the reviews of other movies, it could be assumed that there were negative reviews as well. Such reviews could have also reached the public and thus, people avoided those movies.
Fourthly, even if it is accepted as true that the problem is lack of public awareness, the memo assumes that the best way to ameliorate the situation is through advertising. Before making any decision, all modes of creating public awareness should be explored. The target customers need to be surveyed to analyze which medium they use most often. For example, rather than advertising, people might be reached more effectively through interactive sessions with the actors on famous television talk shows. Or they might be attracted through a 'buy-2-get-1-free movie ticket' offer. Data regarding the reachability and potential of each marketing medium needs to be analyzed before taking any decision.
Conclusively, without meaninful data, focusing more on advertising may not create any further positive impact. Rather, it could lead to wastage of scarce resources. People could already be aware of the positive reviews and thus, they only attended the movies which received them. Moreover, statistical information, regarding correlation and/or causation between the change in positive reviews and the change in movie attendance, is needed. Furthermore, the rest of the movies need to be evaluated for their content and public awareness. The reviews for those movies are also required to unearth the real reason behind a fall in attendance for those movies. Besides, assuming that the problem identified by the advertising director holds true, focusing merely on advertising may not prove fruitful. All mediums of creating public awareness need to be evaluated before opting for the recommendation.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/following-taken-me…
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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: 29 15
No. of Words: 527 350
No. of Characters: 2767 1500
No. of Different Words: 236 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.791 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.25 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.646 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 236 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 163 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 110 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.172 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.837 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.586 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.299 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.496 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.076 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 430, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...sonal preferences or some other factor. Thirdly, the memo assumes that there is ...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 245, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
... or lacked originality. Thereby, people didnt attend those movies. Moreover, as the p...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, besides, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, so, third, thirdly, thus, well, as for, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2854.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 524.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.4465648855 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7844588288 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76353010729 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 240.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.458015267176 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 903.6 705.55239521 128% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 39.407049835 57.8364921388 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.4137931034 119.503703932 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.0689655172 23.324526521 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.58620689655 5.70786347227 98% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.130077579734 0.218282227539 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0432234377851 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0417083160221 0.0701772020484 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0807510793605 0.128457276422 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0420907373856 0.0628817314937 67% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.03 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.6 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 135.0 98.500998004 137% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.