Argument65 【GTER三月机考群090117第一次作业】by Lafela

lafelaUID: 2538110

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."

作者：Lafela01  修改者：Janet02

The president of the cheese stores declares that the best way to improve profits should be concentrating fully on domestic cheeses and discarding the imported cheese because the domestic ones seems more popular to customers. But his declaration seems inconvincible after we take a serious look into his words.

Firstly the statistics that the five best-selling cheeses at the newest store were all from Wisconsin seems responsible for the phenomenon of the increasing popularity for the domestic cheeses, but probably because the foreign countries selling cheeses has some trouble with the United States in trading, which resulted in the insufficient imported cheese store and thus forced people buy domestic cheeses. If it is not for the trading problem, we shall question whether domestic cheeses in other areas are also that popular as Wisconsin’s. If only Wisconsin’s are, then the evidence that domestic cheeses are popular will not be so persuasive to represent the whole domestic cheese popularity condition. One other problem in the statistics is that we cannot judge the best selling cheeses only according to the newest store. Plus here newest store is a single noun which apparently can’t be the best representative of the whole nation chain stores.

Secondly let’s check out the survey by Cheeses of the World magazine. The survey didn’t supply us the range of the subscribers. People in different age may have different preference. Old people may be used to the traditional and homely taste of domestic cheeses while young people are more likely to try the new and unknown brands from other countries. Different areas of people may also have different tastes. People living in isolated places can’t always get imported cheeses since the traffic doesn’t allow. What’s more, the consuming power can also affect the preference. Domestic cheeses may be low-priced for no importing tax but imported cheese may have higher price. In a word, if the survey is held among people who are mainly elderly-aged, isolated from traffic or with low income, we can’t say that these subscribers can’t be called a good sample group.

All in all, whatever the best-selling rank or the survey was about, they can only least allege that domestic cheeses are getting popular but can’t say that imported cheeses are unpopular. So for the president’s conclusion to cut down all the imported cheese seems too extreme and irrational and has no basis of reliable statistics.

janettaoweiUID: 2591384

1# lafela
作者：lefala01 修改者 janet02