初写 argument 求拍

zhanghaolin · 发表于 2012-10-24 11:52:24

The following appeared in an article in the Grandview Beacon.

"For many years the city of Grandview has provided annual funding for the Grandview Symphony. Last year, however, private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent and attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series doubled. The symphony has also announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. Given such developments, some city commissioners argue that the symphony can now be fully self-supporting, and they recommend that funding for the symphony be eliminated from next year's budget."

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.

In the argument, some city commissioners recommend that the symphony can now be self-supporting, and the funding for the symphony should be eliminated from next year's budget. To support the recommendation, they cite the following as evidence: (1) Last year, private contributions increased by 200 percent and attendance at concerts-in-the-park series doubled. (2) The symphony has also announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. The argument seems to be reasonable and well-presented at first glance; however, I am afraid that the argument can hardly bear further consideration because the facts cited by the arguers might have multiple explanations, which make the conclusion unsubstantiated and unpersuasive.

First and foremost, the arguers confuse the conceptions of absolute value and relative value, which made the increase of private contributions and attendance unsound to be convincing evidence. The arguers should provide specific information of the private contributions last year in order to calculate the proportion of private contributions in the total income. If, for example, the proportion is only 5 percent last year even though it had increased by 200 percent, we can hardly admit the private contributions as an important part when taking account of the ability of self-supporting of symphony. For the attendance, it is similar problem. So before the arguers can provide more information about the proportion of private contributions in the total income and data of past years of attendance, it is unwise to reach a conclusion.

Furthermore, the arguers only mention about the increase of the price of tickets but do not take account of other factors in existence which might influence the price. These factors include something as ground rent (maybe the increase of ticket price is only reflecting the increase of ground rent), economic situation (for example, if the local price level is increasing because of the economic growth, then the increase of the ticket price is inevitable because keeping it steady only means less income considering of the increasing wages or other costs). The arguers should provide more details about the ticket price to answer whether the increase of ticket price is compensation of increasing cost or just increasing profit.

Moreover, the arguers apparently ignores that there are some alternative methods which can better reflect the financial situation of the symphony. For instance, as a patron, asking the symphony to provide financial statement will clearly shows whether the symphony can live only based on the income from ticket and private contributions or not. It is much easier to reach a precise conclusion and avoid mistakes.

To sum up, after pointing out so many obvious flaws in the argument, we can say that the evidence cited by authors can hardly be relied on. Before reaching a final conclusion and avoiding undesirable risks, the arguers should make comprehensive investigations on the foregoing factors and weight the advantages and disadvantages of them.

[argument] 初写 argument 求拍

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