Quote:
The following appeared in a memorandum written by the assistant manager of a store that sells gourmet food items from various countries:
“A local wine store made an interesting discovery last month: it sold more French than Italian wine on days when it played recordings of French accordion music, but it sold more Italian than French wine on days when Italian songs were played. Therefore, I recommend that we put food specialties from one particular country on sale for a week at a time and play only music from that country while the sale is going on. By this means we will increase our profits in the same way that the wine store did, and we will be able to predict more precisely what items we should stock at any given time.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion, be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion. (used with permission from mba.com)
The argument by the assistant manager of store that sells gourmet food items from various countries
is completely unreasonable (tone it down. Extreme language is not looked at favorably in AWA. You could have said that you do not agree or that the argument is not based on sound facts etc. He considers the case of
A a local wine store and implies that he can follow the same approach of playing songs of the country while serving food specialties from the
same particular, redundancy country and reap profits out of the same ,
same what? technique or those very songs?.
The argument cannot be taken as is for the following reasons., the way you have ended this statement is not a good approach. You could have mentioned: The argument is faulty and lacks enough evidence to support the assertion of the store manager.Firstly, (show some sort of a structure by using these ordinal numbers)the manager picks a specific store performance for only one month i.e., last month.
Now it is not mandatory that the one month performance of the wine store
can be generalized, is representative of the general trendand also(redundancy) Additionally, what applies for one store need not work for other stores[/color].
This comparison is not appropriate as one you cannot decide a food store scenario from a wine store case study. For instance,
If, if we observe the reason behind the financial success of bar that arranges flickering lights that operate as per the background music,
can we follow the same for a food store or a supermarket, this phrase should end in a question mark. The customers may leave instead either because they experience strain to their vision or because they cannot see a label or price on an item properly.
You could similarly argue that clientele for wine may be different from that of gourmet food items. What are the ways to plug these gaps? Secondly, One aspect is the wine store sold more French than Italian wine on days when it played recordings of French accordion music and vice-versa. In other-words manager wants to say that songs encouraged the country people to have it more. We have no reason to assume the same since it may be a case that the customers who came to drink french/Italian wine may have requested the store people to play their country music. In that case manager cannot assume that this strategy will help food court to get better at profits and other aspects.
Again, you can mention that the argument assumes a reversed cause and effect and hence this argument can be made stronger by ....
Manager recommends that store
keeps, keep food specialties from one particular country on sale for a week at a time and play
only music, music only from that country while the sale is going on. If the store puts food specialties from one country on sale, then the customers who buy the items
regarding, from other
country, countries may leave since they need food as per their requirement anyway. Moreover, this sale will also affect customers who buy mixed food specialties of more than one country.
Many working people coming to shopping in a hurry to buy something and may or may not pay attention to music getting played, fragment, consider revision. So manager cannot assure the success he predicted earlier.
Measures to alleviate this issue?The manager makes an abrupt plan to increase
our, our? profits in the same way that the wine store did and expects that he can predict more precisely what items store should stock at any given time. Since there is no info whether wine store reaped profits because of the music strategy or last month success is a just a coincidence of a parties by few rich people, we cannot be assured of profits. Also it is not certain what makes the manager think that he can predict what items are to be stocked rather he may have depend on the available stock to decide on the outcome in reverse.
The way you have mentioned this paragraph, it is very similar to 1st reason. Try to rephrase this so that it doesnt look like a rehash.For the
[s]above reason, reasons mentioned above[/s], the argument is a completely unreasonable
with existing evidences, without reasonable evidence to support the assumptions. It may become more
reasonable, robust if it is supported by additional information and evaluated again. The best outcome can be expected when he compares a reasonable case study of a food store and applies relevant
informatio, information.