刘文勇GRE写作Argument题库 Day 69

Day 69 Ten years ago our company had two new office buildings constructed as regional headquarters for two regions

The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of a large, highly diversified company.

“Ten years ago our company had two new office buildings constructed as regional headquarters for two regions. The buildings were erected by different construction companies—Alpha and Zeta. Although the two buildings had identical floor plans, the building constructed by Zeta cost 30 percent more to build. However, that building's expenses for maintenance last year were only half those of Alpha's. In addition, the energy consumption of the Zeta building has been lower than that of the Alpha building every year since its construction. Given these data, plus the fact that Zeta has a stable workforce with little employee turnover, we recommend using Zeta rather than Alpha for our new building project, even though Alpha's bid promises lower construction costs.”

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.

五问：

（1）“we recommend using Zeta rather than Alpha for our new building project”是结论，其余部分是事实，值得反驳吗？

（2）两栋楼有着 identical floor plans，就意味着两栋楼在其他方面都是一模一样的吗？地理位置、内部装修甚至施工条件是否都有可能影响施工成本以及维护成本？ Alpha公司所建的大楼需要更高的维护成本，就一定是因为这家公司没有好好完成工作吗？是否可能有其他原因？例如：该公司人为原因导致大楼实际损耗比较严重，使维护费用增加。出于同样的道理，请想想看 energy consumption在没有提及总量的情况下，能否简单地进行比较？

（3）一家工程承包公司拥有更低的 employee turnover比例，是本公司应该考虑的问题吗？人员流动率低，能说明工人的工作效率一定高吗？对于本公司来说，只要工程能按时完成就可以了吧？

（4）我们能否在不涉及总量的情况下将两个比例进行比较？多花费 30%的建造成本与每年减少 50%的维护成本，孰优孰劣？如果出现多花费的 30%成本相当于 1 000年的维护成本的情况，那么两者相比孰优孰劣？

（5）Alpha竞标时提出更低的建造成本，真的不值得考虑吗？一个公司在进行招投标的时候，需要考虑的因素有哪些？成本问题是否应该考虑的重要因素之一？缺乏这方面的考虑是否会严重地影响原文命题的有效性？