题目:170. The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of a company that builds shopping malls around the country.
"The surface of a section of Route 101, paved just two years ago by Good Intentions Roadways, is now badly cracked with a number of dangerous potholes. In another part of the state, a section of Route 40, paved by Appian Roadways more than four years ago, is still in good condition. In a demonstration of their continuing commitment to quality, Appian Roadways recently purchased state-of-the-art paving machinery and hired a new quality-control manager. Therefore, I recommend hiring Appian Roadways to construct the access roads for all our new shopping malls. I predict that our Appian access roads will not have to be repaired for at least four years."
渣渣练习:
The argument is well-presented, but not well-organized or well-developed. It is a comparison of a section of Route 101, a road that has been paved in two years by Good Intentions Roadways, with a part of Route 40, paved more than four years ago. It is obvious that there are great differences between the two, such as condition of these roads. The argument for these recommendation to choose Appian Roadways rather than Good Intentions Roadways seems logical based on these phenomenon.
However, there are lots of mistakes in this comparison between these two companies. Could the section of a road represent the condition of the whole road? Could we conclude that Route 40 is better than Route 101? It is possible that the section of Route 101 has a lot of cars and is often busier than that of Route 40. Based on this possibility, we need other data or mathematic models to prove this result. On the other hand, the investment of the government to the roads is sometimes different. We could guess that the Route 40 gained more investment to support constructing the road. Moreover, two years ago, Good Intentions Roadways is just established without enough experience. However, they may have made a great revolution of the company and strengthened their weakness. So the quality of their construction could have been better than any other companies. In order to view the changes in different times clearly, the background and data about both companies is also needed. Therefore, with only according to the distinction of the section of two roads, anyone cannot make a decision about which company is better.
Apart from the roads, the organization of companies and the tools used to pave roads are also the vital factors. The argument mentioned that the Appian Roadways has purchased state-of-the-art paving machinery. Will the machinery be used in the construction? And is it more effective than the old machinery? Without enough information about the machinery and the examples, it is cursory to make a conclusion that new machinery will make a great influence on paving roads. In addition, it is more likely that Good Intentions Roadways also bought the same machinery. Furthermore, lacking the background and the experience of the new quality-control manager, the decision is baseless. If the new manager is a fresh graduate from college, he is inexperienced to solve problems during the process. In contrast to build up the quality of roads, it will probably result in delaying the time of finishing construction. Uncertainties are much more than the memo above indicated, and the recommendation of the vice president could be false based on these indefinite message.
Overall, the reasoning behind the argument seems logical as presented above since the comparison gives an unambiguous distinction. However, lacking enough data and other necessary info, the conclusion is unfounded and even unjustified. Unless the vice president could provide clear evidence such as what other paving contractors the company could hire or the quality of the companies’ work, I could not buttress the recommendation of the vice president.