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题目：The following appeared as part of a recommendation from the business manager of a department store.
“Local clothing stores reported that their profits decreased, on average, for the three-month period between August 1 and October 31. Stores that sell products for the home reported that, on average, their profits increased during this same period. Clearly, consumers are choosing to buy products for their homes instead of clothing. To take advantage of this trend, we should reduce the size of our clothing departments and enlarge our home furnishings and household products departments.”
我的AGUMENT:
In this argument, the author concludes that the store should enlarge its home furnishings and household products departments and reduce the size of its clothing departments. In support of the conclusion, the author arguers that because of the decrease profits of the clothing and the increase profits of the home products, the stores should choose to sell home products for the consumers rather than clothing. This argument is unconvincing and the conclusion lacks the credibility because it suffers from two critical flaws.
First, the argument depends on the assumption that the clothing profits of stores decreased while the home products profits increased between August 1 and October 31. Although it is true, it is not necessarily true of everyone. The most obvious reasoning error in the argument is the author'use of evidence pertaining to a particular group as the basis of a general group. A period of 3 months is too short to draw a general conclusion of the overall trend. It is equally possible that after October 31, the profits of home product become more than that of the clothing. If so, these facts will not be sufficient to buttress the author’s argument to a large extent.
Second, even with the assumption stated above, the forecast that the store should focus on the sale of the home furnishings and household products is still open to uncertainly. The author fails to consider and rule out other criteria for determining the profits of clothing and home products. For instance, there may be surge of people who will move into their new houses, so the people who are willing to buy the home furnishings become more than the people who want to buy clothing. However, after October31, the number of people who need clothing in winter increased, the profits of the clothing may be increase. Unless the author can give other factors, this argument commits the fallacy of assuming that the market of the home products will be better than that of the clothing.
Based on the reasons I listed above, the argument is logically flawed and therefore unwarranted as it stands. To bolster it, the author should take longer time to make a decision and provide other factors relevant to the conclusion. |
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发表于 2010-8-27 12:22:32
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