1、6The following was written as a part of an application for a small business loan by a group of developers in the city of Monroe. “A jazz music club in Monroe would be a tremendously profitable enterprise. Currently, the nearest jazz club is 65 miles away; thus, our proposed club, the C Note, would h
2、ave the local market all to itself. Plus, jazz is extremely popular in Monroe: over 100,000 people attended Monroes jazz festival last summer, several well-known jazz musicians live in Monroe, and the highest-rated radio program in Monroe is Jazz Nightly, which airs every weeknight. Finally, a natio
3、nwide study indicates that the typical jazz fan spends close to $1,000 per year on jazz entertainment. It is clear that the C Note cannot help but make money.”It is widely held belief that its always wise to invest in something welcomed while not easily available in an area. Obviously, the arguer is
4、 confident in making satisfactory profit by having a jazz music club in Monroe, where jazz music is prevailing while no relevant club exists. The argument seems sound and convictive at first glance, but I am afraid that there are some flaws in it that undermined the validity. The arguer saw Jazzs at
5、traction in Monroe, where the highest-rated radio program is Jazz relevant. Hence he straightly declares that a Jazz club will have a good local market there. But nowadays people are busy with their jobs and might not have enough time to patronize clubs as frequently as before. Thanks to the radio a
6、nd CD sets, everyone can enjoy music anytime, anywhere. For instance, on their way back home, when preparing dinner, or before sleeping. While going clubs, on the other hand, might be something too luxurious for them to afford for lacking of time. A further investigation on how often people of Monro
7、e will go to jazz clubs is needed before the arguer can sweep out the doubt whether the C-note club will have enough customer. Jazz, as any other forms of arts, has its own relative stable group of buffs, who are likely to stick to several artists for a long time, which means people will not turn to
8、 another club or artist so easily as try another brand of milk. So if the investors of C-note want to see good reward, what they have to do is much more than just build the club and invite some jazz musicians. If they failed to offer appealing case of musicians to residents of Monroe, Im afraid the
9、sincere fans will burden to drive 65 miles to another club or simpler, just stay at home listening to CDs of their favorite singers. The arguer quotes from a nationwide survey that approximately $1000 is spent by a typical buff on jazz entertainments, and he presents it as strong proof that the C-no
10、te will have a bright future with the generosity of jazz fans. But its rather nave to believe that considerable part of this $1000 will be spent on C-note, because its highly possible that invest on Hi-Fi, CDs, music instruments occupy a large part, while spending on going clubs might be just trifle
11、s. If the arguer can present with specified items of the percentages spent on different kind of jazz consuming, then we can have a more precise picture of the C-notes future. Anyway, I agree that its highly possible that building a jazz club in Monroe will have good rewarding. But further investigat
12、ion and analysis are needed before the further conclusion and ultimate action. 17The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Walnut Grove town newspaper. “Walnut Groves town council has advocated switching from EZ Disposal (which has had the contract for trash collection services in Waln
13、ut Grove for the past ten years) to ABC Waste, because EZ recently raised its monthly fee from $2,000 to $2,500 a month, whereas ABCs fee is still $2,000. But the town council is mistaken; we should continue using EZ. EZ collects trash twice a week, while ABC collects only once. Moreover, EZ-which,
14、like ABC, currently has a fleet of 20 trucks-has ordered additional trucks. Finally, EZ provides exceptional service: 80 percent of respondents to last years town survey agreed that they were satisfied with EZs performance.” The arguers view seems to be sound and convincing at first glance that Waln
15、ut Crove town should stick to EZ Disposal rather than turn to ABC Waste even if the former raises its monthly fee for 25% because EZ are offering satisfactory service to the town., which is worth the more money it asks for. However, Im afraid his argument can hardly bear further consideration since
16、there are several flaws in it. One seemingly overwhelming advantage of EZ Disposal over ABC Waste is that the former collects trash twice a week while the latter, however, only once. The arguer lays such emphasis on it that gives us the impression that EZ offers double service only for a 25% rise in
17、 price compared to ABC Waste. However, we can hardly find any evidence that its not redundant for EZ Disposal to do so. In other word, there might not be so much trash as have to been collected twice a week in Walnut Crove. Especially, if the landfill of Walnut Crove is kept under good condition, wi
18、thout the problem of environment contamination, then collection of once a week is enough, which ironically shows the low efficiency of EZ Disposal. Its absurd to ask people to pay for the low work efficiency with a reason such as double quantity of work. EZ Disposals ordering of additional trucks, o
19、n the other hand, is another seemingly powerful reason the arguer present to show EZ will offer better service to the town. But he fails to see the possibility that EZ has to update its trucks, which are old and out of service, rather than add to its fleet new trucks. It is unfair if EZ includes thi
20、s updating fee into the service price, while the people of Walnut Crove wouldnt see any more additional improvement in the service it provides than those they deserve. The proportion that 80% respondents are satisfied with EZs performance seems to be convincing. However, there are questionable facto
21、rs: Will the respondents still be satisfied even if the price rises 25%? Have the respondents got the chance to try ABC Wastes service and thus gave a fair comparison between the two? The arguer obviously ignored these by only focus on the absolute figure. Everyone likes to get better service on rel
22、atively lower price. But when things are not the case, a second consideration with rational analysis, comparison and evaluation is needed to see whether the expensive one really worth it.24The following appeared in a memo from the president of Viva-Tech, a manufacturer of high-tech medical equipment
23、. “In order to reduce costs, we should close some of our existing small assembly plants and build a large central plant. Grandview would be an ideal location for this new plant. First, of the locations that we have considered, Grandview has the largest adult population, so that we will be able to st
24、aff our plant quickly and easily. Second, since the average wage earned by workers in Grandview is less than that in the other locations, we should be able to keep production costs low. Last, as an inducement for us to build there, Grandviews town council has offered to allow us to operate for the f
25、irst three years without paying city taxes.”Grandview seems to be the best choice as the new location for a large central plant of Viva-Tech in the arguers point of view with its sufficient adult population, low average wage level and the three years taxes free policy offered by the town council. Th
26、ese certainly will be advantages for such industries as massive productivity, which need a lot of labors in low wages. When things come to high-tech industries like Viva-Tech, however, much more important things have to be taken into consideration before making decision on such important things as n
27、ew plant location. High-Tech industries, unlike traditional industries like iron and steel industry or textiles industry, which need cheap massive labors without special request for high intellectual or complex techniques, look forward to their qualified employees to have specific knowledge. Viva-Te
28、ch focuses on the manufacture of high-tech medical equipments. So those without relevant backgrounds in electronically engineering, mechanical engineering or biotech engineering may not be able to do the highly intellectual jobs. Grandview has largest adult population among the several cities in con
29、sideration. Yet we have no idea whether there are enough qualified high-tech workers and engineers, which are crucial to staff the new plant. Low wage is always appealing to employers, which also attracts the arguer to advocate locating the new plant at the low-wage Grandview. Unfortunately he pays
30、much too attention to the cost on personnel while ignores several essential factors: first, low-wage, to some extent, implies low technique level of the city. If Viva-Tech is to set up its new plant there, it will have to spend much more on recruiting high-tech engineers and workers from outside. On
31、 the other hand, low wage with large work force may mean the poor transport condition and links with nearby cities. This may well be the drawback when the new central plant is built here by making difficult the convey of materials and products in and out the city. The arguer may insist that, anyway,
32、 the three-year tax-free is too attractive an offer to be neglected. It does appeal, yet if we ask why the town council of Grandview can provide so marvelous a policy, which is unlikely to be provided in anywhere else, we can reach the conclusion that, there must be few or even no such high-tech com
33、panies in Grandview. This in turn convinces us our assumption of relative low technical level and other disadvantages like poor transportation of the city. In sum, its unwise to make rash decision on building the new central plant in Grandview only taking the superficial advantages into account. Mor
34、e detailed survey of the technical level and other important issues should be taken.40The following appeared in a memorandum from the president of Excello Food Markets. “In 90 towns where Excello has food markets, natural-food stores specializing in organic food productsproducts containing no chemic
35、al preservatives and made with foods grown without pesticideshave opened nearby as competitors. Surveys of our own customers reveal a growing concern about foods grown using pesticides or preserved with chemicals. Recently our market in Sun City participated in a local food tasting fair, and 75 perc
36、ent of the fair goers who visited the Excello booth requested free samples of organic fruit. Such evidence indicates that to increase our profits, we should begin to stock a full line of organic food products in all our markets.“At first glance, the arguers reasoning seems to be quite sound. Accordi
37、ng to his conclusion, the profit of his company will be raised if they stock a full line of organic food products in all their markets. But unfortunately, if we make a careful consideration of his evidence, doubt will be cast on this conclusion and apprehension will be heaped on this companys future
38、 performance. First of all, the results of the survey conducted by this company are neither relevant nor convincing. It only implies that customers concern about foods grown using pesticides or preserved with chemicals is increasing, while it doesnt necessarily mean that these customers will give up
39、 eating these foods and turn to organic foods. They may still have the non-organic foods, since its common sense that non-organic foods are usually cheaper than organic foods. Their consideration about price may exceed the concern about whether the food is organic or not. Also, the survey just gives
40、 us a description of the customers psychological characteristics, not their realistic behaviors. As we know, although sometimes, behavior may totally reflect peoples psychological state, in most of the cases, ones behavior is affected by many other factors. Therefore when we try to get a conclusion
41、about ones behavior just from his or her psychological preference, we should always be aware of making mistakes. In this case, the customers in the survey may still purchase non-organic foods under the influence of other unforeseeable factors. When we probe into the result of the food testing fair,
42、we may find even bigger flaws in it. Firstly, it was only carried out in Sun City, but the arguer applies its result to all the companys markets while doesnt show us whether Sun City is a representative market of the whole markets. Secondly, it is noticed that those samples of organic fruit is offer
43、ed for free, not for sale. So we have every reason to be doubtful about that if these foods are on sale, whether there are still so many people choose to buy them. Thirdly, the method of the statistics used in this case also arouses skepticism. It only tells us 75 percent of the fair goers requested
44、 the sample, while doesnt mention a word about what proportion of the whole citizen in this city the fair goers stand for? If the fair goers only stand for a tiny proportion of the whole city, we should not be so sure about the conclusion that the Sun City is an organic-food-loving market. After poi
45、nting out so many obvious flaws in the argument, now we can say that the reasons used to support the conclusion cannot be relied on. Before any real commercial actions are taken, the company has to better its evaluations of the situation of its markets. More detailed and reliable surveys should be t
46、aken if the company wants to make out a profitable plan and avoid undesirable risks.52The following appeared in a memo to the human resources manager at Baobob Inc., a large architectural firm. “Several well-known, retired architects were interviewed in Architecture Today about changes in the field.
47、 Only one had earned a college degree in architecture. All others had come into the field at an early age by serving apprenticeships that required them to work under the direct supervision of an experienced architect. Several of the colleges that we recruit from report that many promising architectu
48、re students leave school early in their undergraduate career. Therefore, because finding talented architecture graduates is becoming more difficult, Baobob Inc. should start an aggressive apprenticeship program and hire students who express an interest in architecture directly out of high school rat
49、her than wait for them to get out of college.“In this argument, the arguer recommends that Baobob Inc., a large architectural firm, should start an aggressive apprenticeship program and hire students who have interests in architecture directly out of high school. This recommendation is based on the inquiry that in the several well-known, retired architects who were interview in Architecture Today, only one has a college degree in architecture. In addition, he cites the report of several architecture colleges, which said many promising architecture
