Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five

Question

"The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper.“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising
space in the paper.”

------------------------------------------
The publisher has stated that the decrease of Mercury's subscription over Bugle is primarily due to the price difference. Moreover, The mercury newspaper has seen a decline of 10,000 subscriptions over the last five years. The publisher has also stated that, decreasing Mercury's price lower than Bugle would increase sales which helps in more advertising space and revenue. I find the reasoning provided by the publisher flawed and i explain the reasons in the following paragraphs.

Firstly, the article assumed that the decline is primarily due to the lower price offered by the Bugle than Mercury News. I find this reason quite flawed because, Bulge news paper could be publishing completely different news content than mercury and targeting different sections of the user groups. Moreover Bugle could be publishing less number of pages compared to mercury which has more pages which increase the production cost. It is also not stated if price was the only differentiating factor between the two news papers. This assumption is wrong.

Secondly, the article has not provided any data on the user subscriptions between the two news papers. If the subscriptions of Mercury news is in millions compared to Bugle which is if lower than Mercury than 10,000 subscriptions may not be a huge decline. However mercury news has to analyze on the decline. This could be due to a new editorial started by Bugle Or a new sports editions or some other factors.

Thirdly, there is no evidence of any increase in businesses spending more money on advertising. Had the publisher provide any evidence through research statistics or some sort reducing the price for mercury news may be a hasty decision.

Finally, had the article provided more information on type of readers between the two news papers, any external factors influencing the decline of Mercury news or another data, mercury news should not reduce the price. Therefore, the announcement issued by the publisher is seriously flawed.

Appreciate the help.

Regards,
Vik

KapTeacherEli · Answer

Hi Vik,

Overall, this essay gets a 3. It's got good structure and decent points, but several things hold it back. Proofread; lower-case "i" (not that you should use "I" at all!) and "bulge" instead of "bugle" show up in your first two paragraphs. Explore your points in MUCH more depth. You state in your fourth paragraph that there is no evidence that increased circulation will lead to increased advertising business, but this ignores the fact that circulation affecting advertising revenue is common sense! Of course, you are correct to specify that he doesn't explain how much and how well it will affect that revenue, but your explanation isn't satisfactory. And finally, your transitions are weak--most notably, "finally" in your last paragraph implies you are continuing your list of flaws when you are in fact shifting into your conclusion.

There is a core of a solid essay here, but it needs a lot of polish. Take a look at my advice, and some higher-scoring essays on this site, and I look forward to seeing your next attempt!

Regards,

bvik · Answer

Eli,

Thanks much for the reply and appreciate your help.

I've written the essay again and would appreciate your inputs. 
------------------------------------------------------------
The publisher has stated that Mercury news readership has declined by 10,000 readers over the last 5years. It is also stated that this is due to the lower priced newspaper, The Bugle. It is assumed that the main reason for this decline is due to the price difference between the two papers. 
Hence it is decided to decrease the price of Mercury news, which will help increase circulations to previous levels and hope to attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper. There are certain questionable assumptions which i find logically flawed.

First, the publisher indicated that the decline is primarily due to the price difference between the two news papers and no evidence has been provided to support this. The decline could be due to various factors other than the price such as lack of mobile site to read mercury news which is required to access information faster these days. So, deceasing the price may not meet their long term goals of increase circulations.

Secondly, the publisher hasn't provided any evidence on the ways mercury news advertise the news paper to attract more readers. Being a new newspaper, The Bugle could be aggressively marketing the paper with additional resources in their sales and marketing team which could have caused certain readers to opt for Bugle and hence the decline. So decreasing the price to attract more customers seems logically flawed.

Finally, The technology has been rapidly chaining these days and newspaper industry has seen shape decline in the publications. If mercury news failed to adopt the technology changes into their businesses, its a major concern in the decline. Moreover, the decline could be due to readers adopting different ways to get to the news real time by using various sources like twitter, mobile news application and news feeds.

Therefore, in order to make this more compelling, the publisher should provide more information on the assumptions discussed above. Thus, decreasing the price to increase circulations to former levers is flawed.

----------------------

Thanks,
Vik

KapTeacherEli · Answer

This is an improvement, so good job! But it still needs work. Multiple typos ("rapidly chaining," "former levers") are problematic. Also, your second-to-last sentence is not convicning. You must be more specific about how, precisely, the author could be strengthened to get a top tier score!

Eli

deepika257 · Answer

Please rate my response as well.

The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper:
“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has
declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of
The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract
more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.”

---------------
MY RESPONSE
---------------

The publisher of The Mercury assumes that the lower price of a competing newspaper is the only reason for decrease in the number of The Mercury's readers. Therefore, according to the author, reducing the price of The Mercury below The Bugle is the best way to deal with the competition and improve The Mercury's circulation. Additionally, the publisher concludes that increased circulation will help them to generate revenue by selling advertisement spaces. Publisher's claims and conclusions in the argument seem to be highly superficial because there are no facts and statistics provided to support them.

For example, publisher assumes that the reason behind the decrease in number of readers of The Mercury is only the availability of The Bugle at a lower price. But, there is no statistics provided regrading the number of The Bugle's readers in past 5 years. It is possible that, in general, people have adopted the electronic modes of news and hence, ending the subscription of newspapers. Or, there can be other weekly magazines or newspapers that have been launched in past 5 years that have contributed to the competition. Another reason for decrease in circulation can be the content in the newspaper. For instance, The Mercury might not be paying attention of the changing interests of readers and still publishing the newspapers in old style. A proper analysis on all possible competitions and reasons for decrease in circulation is required to know the actual reason of loosing the readers and take an appropriate action.

Even if the reason for decline in circulation is low price of The Bugle, lowering the price of The Mercury without taking into account, its repercussions on business overall seems to be a hasty decision. Therefore, an in-depth statistical study of effects of lowering the price is necessary to come to such a decision. Other ways to deal with this competition can be to modify the content of The Mercury by adding some columns related to people's interest like providing ratings of online products, providing feedback of restaurants, life-style related articles, volunteering opportunities, newly opened adventure sites etc. This will attract a wider variety of readers from different age groups.

Lastly, the author concludes that The Mercury would be able to makeup for its reduced price by selling advertising spaces. This conclusion lacks proper reasoning because argument does not provide current status of revenue generated by selling advertising spaces. It is possible that the newspaper already is selling all of its advertising spaces at maximum possible prices and there is no scope of selling additional spaces. Also, the conclusion does not consider the possibility of competition in lowering the prices for advertising spaces. There is a good chance that other newspapers including The Bugle may start selling their advertising spaces at lower prices than The Mercury. In that case, The Mercury's revenue will suffer a loss at two ends : low price of newspaper copy and no business to buy advertising spaces.

Hence, it is important for the publisher of The Mercury to collect statistical data from different departments that work on content creation, advertising sales and financial decisions to analyze the actual causes of reduction in circulation of newspaper and take calculated steps to improve the newspaper's popularity. Decisions mentioned in the argument without a proper analysis can leave The Mercury in a much worse condition.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

AWA Score: 5.5 out of 6

Coherence and connectivity: 5/5  
This rating corresponds to the flow of ideas and expressions from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analyzed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.

Paragraph structure and formation: 4.5/5   
The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs are evaluated. To score well on this parameter, it is important to organize the attempt into paragraphs. Preferable to follow the convention of leaving a line blank at the end of each paragraph, to make the software aware of the structure of the essay.

Vocabulary and word expression: 4.5/5  
This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocabulary possessed by the candidate basis the word and expression usage. There are no extra- points for bombastic word usage. Simple is the best form of suave!

Good Luck

Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards