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题目:
The following appeared in a letter from a homeowner to a friend.
"Of the two leading real estate firms in our town—Adams Realty and Fitch Realty—Adams Realty is clearly superior. Adams has 40 real estate agents; in contrast, Fitch has 25, many of whom work only part-time. Moreover, Adams' revenue last year was twice as high as that of Fitch and included home sales that averaged $168,000, compared to Fitch's $144,000. Homes listed with Adams sell faster as well: ten years ago I listed my home with Fitch, and it took more than four months to sell; last year, when I sold another home, I listed it with Adams, and it took only one month. Thus, if you want to sell your home quickly and at a good price, you should use Adams Realty."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
文章:
The Argument is flawed for numerous reasons. Primarily, the argument assumes that the real estate firm with more agents is also more effective, and full-time agents are more effective than part-time ones. However, although Adams Realty has 15 more agents than Fitch Realty does, Fitch may have trained their agents more scientifically. Consequently, their agents may be more effective than Adams' in terms of selling houses. Besides, part-time agents also have some advantages. Their social network is more diversified. Real estate firm agents may seldom know potential customers personally. They only use selling skills to sell houses. But part-time agents may have some friends who coincidentally want to buy a house. In this case, the agent can just sell the house to his friend. Since it is based on personal relationships, the deal may be more profitable.
Moreover, the argument invokes the two firms' revenues to justify that Adams sells houses faster than Fitch does. However, there is an implicit assumption that the two firms operate in the same area. If Adams mainly operates in the downtown areas, where prices for houses is relatively high, and Fitch mainly operates in rural areas, the assumption will not hold true. Similarly, higher average price does not necessarily mean more effective operation. If the average area of houses listed with Adams is larger than house listed with Fitch. The average price set by Adams will definitely be higher than that set by Fitch. But it does not mean that Adams bring more benefits to the homeowners.
Finally, the homeowner also uses his own experiences to support the statement that Adams if more effective than Fitch. But there was a 9-year interval between he sold the two homes. In 9 years, Fitch may have reformed in lots of aspects to improve its efficiency. It is not justifiable to assume that nothing has changed during the 9 years.
In sum, the argument has many implicit assumptions. If these assumptions are unwarranted, the statement is also not justifiable.
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