The 120-Word Proposal: Budget Math and What the Survey Really Says
The student must write a 120-word proposal to the student council, which votes in one week. Two sources. (1) A survey of 80 students: 45% want longer library hours, 30% want more group study rooms, 25% chose "other"; 60% of all respondents were third- and fourth-year students. (2) An email from the library: the budget for one change is 50,000 yen; extending hours by two hours each weekday costs 8,000 yen per week for the 12-week term; converting a storage room into a group study room costs 30,000 yen once, plus 2,000 yen per week for staffing. The council wants one recommendation with a cost and a reason. The student personally believes group rooms matter more, but every friend the student asked said "library hours."
1. Test each option against the 50,000-yen budget, then decide which recommendation the evidence can actually support.
Read the worked answer
Longer hours: 8,000 x 12 = 96,000 yen - 46,000 over budget. A 6-week pilot costs 48,000, which fits but delivers the service for only half the term.
Group room: 30,000 + (2,000 x 12) = 54,000 yen - 4,000 over. Ten weeks of staffing instead of twelve lands at exactly 50,000.
Both options need adjustment, but the group room buys a permanent asset, while the hours pilot disappears when the money runs out.
What the survey supports: 45% of 80 = 36 students versus 30% = 24, a 12-person gap, with 20 choosing "other." Hours lead, but 12 people out of 80 is a plurality, not a mandate, and the 25% uninterpretable category limits any strong claim. With 60% of respondents in the upper years, first- and second-year preferences are underweighted. The defensible move is to recommend the group room at 50,000 yen over ten weeks and cite the 24 students who asked for it - not to claim the survey "proves" demand.
2. Allocate the 120 words across the proposal's parts, and state what each part must do.
Read the worked answer
- Recommendation and cost, about 40 words: one sentence naming the change, one giving the total (30,000 once + 2,000 x 10 weeks = 50,000 yen, within budget).
- Evidence, about 35 words: the survey figure that supports it (24 of 80 students, 30%) plus the fact that the room is permanent.
- Limitation and counter-move, about 30 words: acknowledge that hours drew more support (36 of 80) but cannot be funded for the full term at 8,000 yen per week.
- Closing ask, about 15 words: a specific vote request and a date.
The budget is 120 words, so the draft must be cut to fit rather than written and trimmed later. The limitation paragraph is the part weak writers drop, and it is the part that makes the proposal credible: it shows the council the writer saw the rival option and chose with open eyes.
3. Name two pieces of information the student should leave out, and explain the principle behind each exclusion.
Read the worked answer
The friends' opinions. "Everyone I asked said library hours" is an anecdote selected by who happens to be nearby, not evidence. Including it invites the council to compare a self-selected chat with a survey of 80 - and the survey will win, weakening the writer's credibility. Its use is diagnostic only: it explains why the student expected hours to be the answer, not why the council should fund rooms.
The 25% "other" category, treated as support for anything. The breakdown is unknown, so it cannot be counted for either side. Mentioning it as if it were sympathy for the proposal is a form of padding that a sharp reader spots immediately.
Principle: a proposal includes only what a voter can verify and what bears on the decision. Personal impressions and uninterpretable data add words without adding weight - and in a 120-word document, every wasted word displaces an argument that could have persuaded someone.