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.
Super Screen Movie Production company is clearly facing a dilemma in that its sales are clearly declining in the past year, in spite of an apparent increase in the quality of reviews of Super Screen movies. This has caused some at the executive level to advocate for increasing the budget on Super Screen advertising, in order to make more audience members aware of the quality of the movies emphasized by reviewers. As logical as this initially sounds, we find that upon carefully weighing the argument, some key assumptions are made that require additional support. In particular, the argument assumes that the audiences will be receptive and persuaded by movie reviews, that increasing the funds in the budget will actually enhance the effectiveness of advertising, and that an increase in positive reviews emphasizes an increase in movie quality. We ask then whether these assumptions are truly valid in order to determine whether the argument is indeed a good plan for the company.
Firstly, we must determine whether indeed audiences are receptive to movie criticism before adopting the forthcoming plan. While many movie goers care very strongly about the critical acclaim and quality of the movies that they see, personal experience informs me that a large proportion of the movie-going audience does not have movie critical reception in mind for the movies that they see. A great many of movie goers in my age group care only about crowd-pleasing entertainment, such as action, special effects, love stories, etc. This is why many summer blockbuster movies such as the Transformers movies become such great hits even when they are panned by critics. Therefore, in order to determine whether this argument is truly a good plan, further research would have to be done to see how audiences respond to film criticism. In other words, if consumers are told that a movie is well-received critically, how much likely are they necessarily to see it? Additional polling data would help to confirm whether this assumption is valid.
In addition, we must ask whether the advertising budget is being spent effectively such that additional funds would increase the knowledge of Super Screen movies. It is not always clear that simply increasing a budget for something will solve a problem. Perhaps the advertising is being performed in an ineffective way. For instance, it could be possible that the majority of advertising for the quality of Super Screen movies is currently conducted on network television, but suppose that the audiences of network television are dwindling in favor of Netflix or other streaming sites? In such a scenario, the allocation of additional funds to advertise Super Screen movies on network television would be an unhelpful waste of money since few audience members will be reached in this way. In the best scenario, Super screen movies could potentially save money by reorganizing the advertising budget to more effective media, therefore becoming more effective while also avoiding additional costs. Hence, in order to know whether the suggested plan is the most efficient solution, we must ask whether the current advertising budget is being spent in an effective manner.
Finally, we must be certain that Super Screen movies are in fact good quality before we spend additional funds to advertise them. While it is true that positive reviews of Super Screen movies have increased over the past year, there could be factors at play besides the movie quality that give rise to this trend. For instance, suppose that audienceship for Super Screen movies has decreased so drastically that the only reviewers willing to write reviews for the movies anymore are the faithful few who still adhere to Super Screen movies, while all other critics have given up and consider it a waste of time to review Super Screen films. In this scenario, the reviews would have a positive bias that make the movies appear much better than they really are. Hence, we must ask whether the movies are truly good quality that the majority of audiences would enjoy. To answer this question, the Super Screen company could hire a panel of unbiased, respected movie critics to review their movies, thus determining in a more unbiased way the quality of the movies. This is an important point to consider before devoting funds to the advertising plan.
We have observed that the argument at hand relies on multiple large assumptions that may not be valid. Before Super Screen movies devotes money to the proposed plan, they must answer whether in fact audiences will even respond to the positive movie reviews, whether the advertising funds are being spent effectively, and whether the movies are in fact good quality. Answering these questions will make the argument far more sound, and thus less risky to adopt the proposed plan of action.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- not OK
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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: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 793 350
No. of Characters: 3977 1500
No. of Different Words: 304 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.307 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.015 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.584 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 286 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 218 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 145 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 95 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.321 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.367 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.323 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.489 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.145 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 299, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in an ineffective way" with adverb for "ineffective"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
...haps the advertising is being performed in an ineffective way. For instance, it could be possible tha...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1147, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in an effective manner" with adverb for "effective"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
...rrent advertising budget is being spent in an effective manner. Finally, we must be certain that ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, besides, but, finally, first, firstly, hence, if, may, really, so, still, then, therefore, thus, well, while, for instance, in addition, in fact, in particular, such as, in other words, in spite of, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 40.0 19.6327345309 204% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 25.0 13.6137724551 184% => OK
Pronoun: 60.0 28.8173652695 208% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 97.0 55.5748502994 175% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 4064.0 2260.96107784 180% => OK
No of words: 793.0 441.139720559 180% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.12484237074 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.30662375533 4.56307096286 116% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64416077716 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 313.0 204.123752495 153% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.394703656999 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1279.8 705.55239521 181% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 15.0 4.96107784431 302% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 12.0 4.22255489022 284% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 65.9653279735 57.8364921388 114% => OK
Chars per sentence: 140.137931034 119.503703932 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.3448275862 23.324526521 117% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.75862068966 5.70786347227 136% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 24.0 8.20758483034 292% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.215891897957 0.218282227539 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0716058100337 0.0743258471296 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0623606879345 0.0701772020484 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.144965037996 0.128457276422 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0454059797927 0.0628817314937 72% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.4 14.3799401198 114% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.06 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 155.0 98.500998004 157% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => 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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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.