Please grade my response as well.
“In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts
than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our
city’s art museums has increased by a similar percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television,
where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened with severe cuts, we can expect that
attendance at our city’s art museums will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city’s funds for supporting the arts
should be reallocated to public television.”
---------------
MY RESPONSE
---------------
The argument suggests that because, in past 5 years, increase in percentage of residents watching visual arts on television and people visiting art museum is same, there is a strong relationship between people watching arts on TV and people appreciating arts in museum. However, the argument seriously fails to present any evidence to prove what it claims and hastily lands on a conclusion. A few of such instances are as follows.
Firstly, author assumes that all the people who watch visual arts programs on TV are the only people motivated to visit art museums. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. It is possible that people who enjoy arts on TV are not able to or do not want to travel to visit museum in person. There can be many reasons for increase in visitors to museum like more students taking arts as a major subject or education policy changes in schools and colleges that require students' visits to arts museum. But, there is no reason provided to support the inference. Another reason for increase in city museum's attendance can be tourism. Authorities may have spend some funds to advertise the museum outside the city or have purchased some new displays for museum that attracted for visitors.
Additionally, the argument that decrease in funding of public television will affect the attendance in art museum is completely superficial and is not supported by any facts or statistics. Contrary to author's assumption, authorities can attract more visitors to the museum by diverting arts funding of public television towards adding more displays at city museum, providing more facilities or better maintaining the city museum. Again, no information is given to relate the trends of residents watching arts on TV and people visiting art museum.
Hence, the conclusion of reallocating arts funds to public television lacks proper reasoning and statistical support. Author should take help of some statistics to reflect that people are getting inspired to visit city museum by watching visual arts on television. This would make the conclusion strong and convincing.