该不该恢复天气预报和本地新闻的时长？

　　GRE18—Argument: 该不该恢复天气预报和本地新闻的时长？

　　The short passage:

　　18. The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station.

　　"Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this period, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand our coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs."

　　The introduction:

　　Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted

　　The sample essay:

　　A television station attributed its failures in keeping attracting viewers and earning advertising revenues to the reduction of time in which weather and local news were aired. An expanded coverage of them was thus proposed. This argument is, yet, problematic when it is deduced by two groundless assumptions. More persuasive assumptions should be put forward before this argument is raised.

　　The first assumption is that audience complained about the shorter time this television station devoted to weather and local news（提出案例中的观点是依赖何种‘前提’得出）.

　　These complaints were merely concerned with these two aspects but did not necessarily refer to the shrink of them (摆明事实). It is highly possible that audience were unsatisfactory with their content or declarative devices (sound, pictures or videos, etc.) （细节的呈现注意详略得当）. Even though the dissatisfaction was about the lasting time in displaying these two sessions, they might wish the time shortened in a much significant way rather than the opposite （可能观众不满的不是时间减短，而是减得不够短）. Besides, even though most of the audience complained this, without substantiating the adequacy of attendees in this survey, this is unlikely to be representative （数据不足可能产生不具备代表性的问题）. Evidently, based on the suspicious assumption, the expanded coverage of these two columns might fail to attract more viewers.

　　The second assumption is that the exodus of local businesses was because this television station allocated shorter time to broadcast weather and local news （使得观点成立的‘前提二’）. This is groundlessly assumed as local businesses were likely to advertise during the time when national news was aired instead of relying on other two programs to make advertisement. Thus, the reasons why they canceled the contracts with us are uncertain（典型的没有控制变量类的逻辑错误）.Presumably, they chose to advertise via other mediums such as the Internet or billboards on public transportation（具体变量分析）.Even if they advertised on this television station’s weather and local news columns, they are of fewer possibilities to continue their cooperation with this TV station when(衔接限定条件)there is a much higher pricing, declined prestige of the station or emergence of other competitive television stations （除非可以把语流呈现的很流畅，否则不建议写大长句）. Losses of advertising revenues may ensue accordingly.

　　Conclusion

　　（略）

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