The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants.
"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. Only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that an average of 98 people out of 100 are happy with the change. Furthermore, many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. Clearly, either these customers cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, we predict that Happy Pancake House will be able to increase profits dramatically if we extend this cost-saving change to all our restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well."
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.
The memorandum from the business manager predicts that by replacing the butter by margarine in the Happy Pancake House restaurants, there would be dramatic increase in profits.His argument is based on analogy from southwestern United states and some surveys conducted there. However, a number of questions need to be answered before we conclude that recommendation is sound.
Firstly, there is the question of whether the customers who complained are normal customers who make average purchases or are those who are bulk customers who make heavy purchases. May be these 2% are those who account for bulk of business in southwestern zone.So, it may adversely affect the bottomline of the business in that zone rather than present a rosy picture that has been painted by the manager. Further just because that 98% did not complain does not mean they are happy with the change.
Secondly, what are the number of customers who ask for butter, but do not complain when they are given margarine? Without proper quantification there is no way we could conclude that they are significant. In addition to that without any proper survey being conducted whether the butter actually means either butter or margarine or they are actually interchangeable the manager makes hasty conclusion from the data.
Thirdly, there is the question of analogy drawn between southwest, southeast and northeast. The manager assumes that the situation and circumstances in southwest is similar to northeast and southeast. There is no evidence presented regarding the same. It may be that People living in the southeast and northeast are obstinate in their food choices. It may also be that for these people "butter" may mean just "butter".
Finally, there is the claim of cost saving in the future. At no point in the argument does the manager present the fact of increased cost saving in the southwest. He is also oblivious to the future of the revenues in this zone, but he goes on to predict the future for other areas as well. This is dubious at best.
In conclusion, the argument put forward by the manager suffers from serious questions which need to be answered in order to consider it to be reasonable in predicting high profits for the company with the proposed change.
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argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK. Even the number of customers are given, they can't prove some thing.
Furthermore, many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. Clearly, either these customers cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine.
argument 3 and argument 4 can be put in one argument. //Suppose it works in location A, but it doesn't mean it will work in location B.
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read samples:
http://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-essays/butter-has-now-been-replaced-marg…
http://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-essays/following-memorandum-business-man…
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Attribute Value Ideal
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Category: Satisfactory Excellent
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No. of Words: 376 350
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Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5