GRE寫作的真題練習是GRE備考中非常重要的一個環節，今天我們先來分析這5道：

　　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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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

　　51. The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants.

"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. Only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that 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 cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, to avoid the expense of purchasing butter and to increase profitability, the Happy Pancake House should extend this cost-saving change to its restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well."

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.

　　130. The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants.

"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. Only about 2 percent of customers have filed a formal complaint, 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 cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, to avoid the expense of purchasing butter, the Happy Pancake House should extend this cost-saving change to its restaurants throughout the rest of the country."

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.

　　131. The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants.

"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. 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 cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, we predict that Happy Pancake House will be able to increase profits dramatically if we extend this cost-saving change to all our restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well."

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction 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 prediction.

　　133. The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants.

"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. 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 cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, to avoid the expense of purchasing butter and to increase profitability, the Happy Pancake House should extend this cost-saving change to its restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well."

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

這五道GRE題其實都差不多，講的是美國的西南有一家叫Happy Pancake House的餐廳，自從把奶油換成人造黃油(margarine)之後，只有2%的客人有所抱怨，所以98%的客人都很喜歡這個改變，而且餐廳服務員也說當客人要黃油但被給了人造黃油之後，客人也沒有抱怨。

所以作者得出結論說客人可能根本無法分辨黃油和人造黃油的區別，或者用黃油指代這兩種東西。除了最上面的那道題以外，其餘四道都還提到了說作者認爲應該把這個改變推廣到其他的區域，爲了讓這家連鎖餐廳得到更高的利潤。

GRE這道題的思路其實非常簡單：

1、只有2%的客人抱怨不代表剩下的客人對這個改變表示滿意，很有可能非常不滿但是沒有說，因爲服務員長得實在是太漂亮了不好意思抱怨。還有可能很多客人都是第一次來這家餐廳，根本不知道之前給的是黃油。

2、服務員說的話不可信，因爲服務員的本職工作是讓客人滿意，所以當老闆問服務員客人滿不滿意時，服務員肯定會說大家都非常滿意，要不然就顯得他們自己沒做好自己的本職工作。

3、作者認爲他們沒有抱怨就代表有可能客人對於黃油和人造黃油不加以區分，但是不抱怨不等於不區分，可能只是不在乎罷了。比如，我去小賣部說：“老闆，給我一瓶農夫山泉”，然後老闆給了我一瓶娃哈哈，我照樣給了兩塊錢就走了，什麼都沒說。按照作者的邏輯，老闆肯定揹着我想：“你看這個缺心眼兒，都分不出來哇哈哈和農夫”。

4、對於後面提到了利潤的題，首先可以討論換成人造黃油之後因爲口感變差客人會減少，導致總收入降低，所以即使成本減少了也不能獲得更高的利潤。然後再說就算這個改變在西南真的可以獲得更高的利潤，在其他區域的連鎖餐廳可能做不到，因爲其他區域的客人可能更在乎黃油對於鬆餅的口感。

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