劉文勇GRE寫作Argument題庫 Day 47

Day 47 Because of declining profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore's ten movie-rental stores

The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of movie-rental stores.

“Because of declining profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore's ten movie-rental stores. Raising prices is not a good option, since we are famous for our low prices. Instead, we should reduce our operating hours. Last month our store in downtown Marston reduced its hours by closing at 6:00 p.m. rather than 9:00 p.m. and reduced its overall inventory by no longer stocking any DVD released more than five years ago. Since we have received very few customer complaints about these new policies, we should now adopt them at all other Movies Galore stores as our best strategies for improving profits.”

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

五問：

（1）“declining profits”“we are famous for our low prices”和“Last month our store in downtown Marston reduced its hours by closing at 6:00 p.m. rather than 9:00 p.m. and reduced its overall inventory by no longer stocking any DVD released more than five years ago. Since we have received very few customer complaints about these new policies”是事實(shí)， “Instead, we should reduce our operating hours”是結(jié)論，值得反駁嗎？

（2）只因?yàn)槲覀兪且患乙缘蛢r(jià)而聞名的租賃店，就要放棄提高價(jià)格的選項(xiàng)嗎？?jī)r(jià)格稍有提升一定會(huì)改變?cè)械奶刭|(zhì)嗎？更進(jìn)一步說，為了一個(gè)低價(jià)的名聲而放棄一個(gè)可能正確的策略真的值得嗎？

（3）僅憑一個(gè)店鋪的運(yùn)營(yíng)效果，就能簡(jiǎn)單地將新策略推行到其他所有的店鋪中嗎？店鋪和店鋪之間可能因?yàn)槟男┮蛩囟兴煌磕隳芫唧w地羅列一兩個(gè)可能的因素嗎？比如：地理位置、租金價(jià)格等。這些因素將如何影響一個(gè)店鋪可能的運(yùn)營(yíng)方向？好的地段交通便利、客流量大，營(yíng)業(yè)時(shí)間長(zhǎng)可能會(huì)盈利更多；租金價(jià)格上漲可能會(huì)導(dǎo)致成本過高，需要通過其他方式來縮減運(yùn)營(yíng)成本。另外，文中有給出 Marston店鋪在實(shí)施新策略之后的利潤(rùn)變化嗎？即使盈利了，新策略才剛實(shí)施一個(gè)月，這個(gè)月的情況能代表全年的情況嗎？

（4）很少有顧客抱怨就意味著大部分的顧客都滿意嗎？是否可能存在一部分顧客雖不滿意但也沒有抱怨就直接離開的情況？這會(huì)導(dǎo)致什么樣的糟糕結(jié)果？可能會(huì)導(dǎo)致顧客越來越少。

（5）制定該策略時(shí)有沒有考慮到電影租賃店的客流高峰期這個(gè)因素？下午 6點(diǎn)到 9點(diǎn)會(huì)不會(huì)是顧客更多的時(shí)段？即便一個(gè)策略是有效的，在沒有嘗試其他策略之前，能夠簡(jiǎn)單地得出結(jié)論說該策略一定是最優(yōu)的嗎？