看看这篇能不能得6

moonlikegirlUID: 2901331

TOPIC: ARGUMENT65 - The following appeared in a memo from the president of a chain of cheese stores located throughout the United States.

"For many years all the stores in our chain have stocked a wide variety of both domestic and imported cheeses. Last year, however, the five best-selling cheeses at our newest store were all domestic cheddar cheeses from Wisconsin. Furthermore, a recent survey by Cheeses of the World magazine indicates an increasing preference for domestic cheeses among its subscribers. Since our company can reduce expenses by limiting inventory, the best way to improve profits in all of our stores is to discontinue stocking many of our varieties of imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses."
WORDS: 703
TIME: 0:30:00


         The president professes that in order to improve profits all their cheese stores should discontinue stocking many of imported cheese and focus mainly on domestic ones. Based on the fact that the five best-selling cheeses at their newest store were all domestic cheeses last year and a recent survey result conducted by a magazine indicating an increasing preference for domestic cheeses, the president's argument is well presented, yet a close scrutiny reveals that it is far from satisfactorily reasoned. Indeed, the thread of the argument is based on several logic flaws.

          To begin with, the arguer commits a logic fallacy of hasty generalization since he bases partly of his conclusion on the sales of one store in only one year. As mentioned in the argument, it is only in last year that the five best-selling cheeses were domestic ones and it is only in the newest store while there is no information about either the sales of other stores across the country or the sales of previous years. Thus without these information, I could hardly agree that this fact has anything to do with the suggestion.

         Another threshold problem involved in the argument is about the credibility of the survey conducted by Cheeses of the World magazine. By presenting the name of the magazine, the arguer indicates that the survey is conducted by some authority since this is a magazine dedicated to cheese. However, this does not necessarily guarantee that the sampling is representative enough to represent the real psychological conditions of the customers of the cheese store since the subscribers might be people who patron other stores. Moreover, the pool of samples is not defined in the argument, thus the result could be invalid in the first place due to lack of respondents. What's more, the argument uses only vague term as 'an increasing' while providing nothing about the real figures and percentages.

         Even if the survey does show an increasing preference for domestic cheeses by the general populace, it only reflects the psychological conditions of the respondents. It is common sense that people's psychological tendency does not always conform to their real behaviors. As a result, even the respondents might no buy domestic cheese as expected, let alone other customers who are not surveyed at all. If the increase is very tiny and expected to be temporary, the president's proposal will only become too risky and irresponsible.

        Adding to the vulnerability of the argument is the promise of increased profits suggested by the president. First of all, as discussed above, the popularity of domestic cheese is questionable. Thus concentrating primarily on them while reducing the store of imported ones might hurt the interest of some customers who love imported cheeses. It is also fairly possible that the diversity of choices is very important for customers so that when deprived with this right, many customers would turn to other cheese stores. Subsequently, since profit is related to both revenues and expenses, the stores won't be profitable even if the expenses of storing would be reduced due to lack of revenues.

        Granted that the above mentioned problems can be well validated, the arguer still makes a false analogy between the newest store and any other cheese store in the country. It might be very likely that only the customers around the newest store that like the domestic cheddar cheeses so as to support the local industry, thus simply applying the proposal to all of their cheese stores will only be risky. Further information of the sales conditions of other stores must be provided in order to verify the proposal.

         In sum, both the fact about sales and the survey result are weak in lending strong support to the arguer's final claim. Moreover, he also overlooks that revenue is also related to profits and oversimplified the issue by applying the method to all stores. To better bolster the argument, information about the sales in other stores across the country and in various years should be submitted. In order to be convinced, I would also like to have solid evidence to prove that the popularity of domestic cheeses real exist and will last. If possible, alternative methods to increase profits must be taken in consideration.