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Please rate and provide suggestion. Exam on11/12/12
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11 Nov 2012, 07:47
Hello,
Please rate this essay and provide suggestions to improve. This is from the Kaplan CAT 9. I thought the topic was little vague and did not define the elements accurately. However, I gave it a shot.
“Of all the cities in their region, Beaumont and Fletcher are showing the fastest growth in the number of new businesses. Therefore, Avia should establish a commuter route between them as a means of countering recent losses on its main passenger routes. And to make the commuter route more profitable from the outset, Avia should offer a 1/3 discount on tickets purchased within two days of the flight. Unlike tickets bought earlier, discount tickets will be nonrefundable, and so gain from their sale will be greater.”
The author concludes that Avia should establish a commuter route between Beaumont and Fletcher as a means of countering recent losses on its main passenger routes. To support this conclusion the author states that Beaumont and Fletcher are showing fastest growth in new businesses of all the cities in the surrounding region. Moreover, the author further states that in order to increase the profit even more, Avia should provide 1/3 discount on tickets purchased within two days of the flight and make it nonrefundable. This argument is unconvincing because of multiple reasons.
Firstly, the author assumes that growth in new businesses in Beaumont and Fletcher is causing people of those regions to commute between the regions frequently. However, it could very well be that the new businesses in Beaumont and Fletcher respectively do not conduct business between each other or employ resources from the other region. This would cause the commute between the two regions to reduce significantly and hence contradicting the author's assumption.
Secondly, the author assumes that majority of the people purchase tickets within two days of the flight. However, there is no fact supporting this assumption. Due to the growth of the number of new businesses, it could very well be that travelers plan their travel way in advance as they would know their future schedule. It could also be that travelers reserve their travel way in advance in order to be on the safe side but cancel their flight couple of days before the departure. These scenarios would contradict author's assumption and not help Avia to gain from the discounted tickets.
Because of the flaws stated above, this arguments is unconvincing. In order to strengthen the argument, the author needs to provide more facts such as number of people traveling within two days of the flight, number of people canceling their reservation as they booked their flight way in advance and number of people commuting between Beaumont and Fletcher on regular basis to conduct business or working in a business. Without these facts, this argument remains unconvincing.