标题: A15 球拍！！！！二血 331！ [打印本页] 作者: yhfu 时间: 2012-3-6 18:21 标题: A15 球拍！！！！二血 331！ 15) The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants. Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. This change, however, has had little impact on our customers. In fact, only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that an average of 98 people out of 100 are happy with the change. Furthermore, many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. Clearly, either these customers do not distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
The memorandum from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants concluded that the customers are rarely influenced by their menu change. This conclusion, however, is rife with holes because of its gravituous evidence and reasoning and even can be explained to conversed conclusions.
The sources, both of the survey statistic and the servers' reports, can be fairly doubted. The percentage of complaints showed in the survey of the costomers clearly needed some scientific supports and background information. We can not make a judgement merely from a list of statistic numbers without the knowledge of the representitiveness of the samples, the range of the investigations and the methodology of which the survey adopted. For example, the sample customers are choosen from those who favored margarine accidentally. Even much less reliable are the reports of the servers, because they are presented just as subjective feelings. They may not be wise and careful enought to recognize the subtle imply to change the margarine from their customers. These unwarranted sources undermine the overall conclusion.
Even assuming that these sources are reliable, one can give other alternative explanations to these sources as well and draw a totally different conclusion. The survey suggests that 2 percent of the customers complained about the change from butter to margarine. But it does not infer the attitudes of the 98 percent remained. Their attitudes can be positve, neutral or negetive. In addtion, their attitudes are not necessarily revealed in the survey. The customers may be very dicomforted about the change but for some reason they just did not complain about it. They may choose to go to another restaurant instead to show their dissatisfaction. Considering these potential complaints, we may suppose the percentage of dissatisfied customers are much more larger than we can imagine, and thus the change in the use of butter has possibly made an great impact on customers.
Moreover, even if the 98 percent of people are happy with the change, alternative explainations are still available. The manager concludes from the reports of servers that either the cunstomers are not capable to differ butter from margarine or they have broaden the defination of "butter". Likewise, the manager failed to take those "potentially dissatisfied" costumers into consideration. Chances are high that they choose to be silent about the change and vote with their foot for the next time. Worse still, it is possible that some people who do not like margarine cannot tell butter from margarine unless they are informed. Therefore the dissatisfaction of the substitution for butter may be woefully underestimated and, accordingly, the conclusion will be largely conversed.
To sum up, from the same facts presented in the memorandum, one can easily draw a definitely different conclusion. Hence, to clearify the problem and make a convincing conclusion, more evidence and considerations are desprately needed.