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61) 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,the author predicts that the symphony can be fully self-supporting and recommend to eliminate funding for the symphony from next year's budget.To bolster his argument, the author points out that both the private contributions to the symphony and the attendance at the centers-in-the-park doubled last year.He also claims that the ticket prices will be increased for next year.The argument seems somewhat convincing at first glance, after careful reflection, however, reveals some questions would need to be answered.
In the first place,merely based on the evidence of the increased private contributions and doubled attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series last year, the author assumes without justification that the private contributions and income would also increase next year,and thus the symphony can procure enough funding to support its development.An important question is that the author fails to indicate the amount of private contributions and the absolute number of attendants,so the evidence is far too vague to be meaningful.Even assuming that both the private contributions and the attendance were considerable,the conditions might not remain the same next year.Maybe the company,who contributed to the symphony last year,are experiencing an financial crisis,thus its board have decided to give up its contributions next year.
In the second place,citing the evidence that the symphony will increase its tickets price,the author infers that the increased price will definitely bring more profits for the symphony,thus it is not necessary to offer more funding.However,the validity of his inference is worth questioning.In the argument, the author neglects to take the unfavorable consequence of increasing tickets price.Perhaps,most of the residents there cannot afford the expensive tickets price any more,so the attendance would suffer a great decline accordingly,and thus decrease its income eventually.If it is the case,the author's conclusion is unconvincing.
Last bu not least, even though the private contributions and the income were actually increased next year,it is still insane to eliminate the funding to the symphony from next year's budget.In the argument,the author pays more attention to the factors,which is beneficial to the symphony,but neglects to take the costs and other occurrence into consideration.It is possible that the operating costs,such as rent costs , equipment costs and the salaries of its staff,will offset,even overwhelm the income.Moreover,some other possible occurrence,unfavorable economic conditions for example,might prevent the symphony from creating profits.Without ruling out these possible factors, the author cannot hastily make the recommendation.
In summary,the recommendation is of little validity.To solidify his argument, the author would have to provide more detailed information about conditions of the symphony. In addition, he should preclude the above-mentioned possibilities to male a more reliable recommendation.
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