In an attempt to improve highway safety, Prunty County last year lowered its speed limit from 55 to 45 miles per hour on all county highways. But this effort has failed: the number of accidents has not decreased, and, based on reports by the highway patro

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In an attempt to improve highway safety, Prunty County last year lowered its speed limit from 55 to 45 miles per hour on all county highways. But this effort has failed: the number of accidents has not decreased, and, based on reports by the highway patrol, many drivers are exceeding the speed limit. Prunty County should instead undertake the same kind of road improvement project that Butler County completed five years ago: increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways, and improving visibility at dangerous intersections. Today, major Butler County roads still have a 55 mph speed limit, yet there were 25 percent fewer reported accidents in Butler County this past year than there were five years ago.

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.

The author of the statement above believes that Prunty Country rather than limiting the speed limit should implement an improvement plan of the road. This conclusion is based on the seemingly successful experience that Butler Country had five years ago and with the same road-improvement-plan reduced the accidents to a half. The author needs to incorporate vital evidences into the argument.

First, the Butler County reaps the benefits after four years. The author needs evidence to show that there was not any alternative strategy ,during the four years period, that resulted in the decline of the accidents. It is possible that people are culturally taught by the media and they have become more aware to meet the rules. The punishment for every driving outlaw might become so heavy that precluded the most of citizens about even thinking about any driving outlaw. Moreover, it is possible that the reduction of the speed limit was a viable plan, but as the population might increase drastically, the number of the accidents remained constant. Therefore, the author also needs to provide statistical evidence in terms of percentage to show that the accident's numbers are worsened.

Secondly, the author needs to provide evidence showing that whether enough time has gone since the past year to disprove the efficiency of lowering the speed limit or not. As it is evinced, Butler County reaches such a success after four years. It is possible that still the Prunty County needs more time. It is possible that, as many drivers do not meet the limit speed, people still may not adapt to the new driving rules.

Finally, assuming that all previous evidence gives credence to the author’s conclusion, it should be evinced that emulating the strategy of Butler would work in Prunty. Although the poor infrastructures of the road in Prunty County can result in the accidents, there is no evidence that such infrastructures are having any defect in Prunty County. It is possible that all the requirement of the standard road is met years ago and now there should be other solutions to tackle the accident problem in Prunty county. Furthermore, it should be evinced that two counties are significantly similar. It is possible that even the geographical and climatic conditions of the two compared areas are quite different defying any reasonable comparison. The smog, icy roads, rock falls, and so many threats might exist on the highways of Prunty County which Butler town is immune to them. If this is the case, situations between these two areas would be incommensurable.

In short, as discussed the argument lacks several vital evidence needed to support the conclusion. The lack of enumerated evidence renders the argument open to different explanations and thus the argument cannot provide any certainty. Therefore the conclusion which is based on such an inconclusive argument cannot be tenable.

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argument 1 -- need to focus on one argument. The topic sentence: 'First, the Butler County reaps the benefits after four years.', while in the middle of the argument you were talking something else: 'Moreover, it is possible that the reduction of the speed limit was a viable plan, but as the population might increase drastically, the number of the accidents remained constant. Therefore, the author also needs to provide statistical evidence in terms of percentage to show that the accident's numbers are worsened. '.

This essay is a good sample to stick on the topic sentence:
http://testbig.com/gmatgre-essays/attempt-improve-highway-safety-prunty…

argument 2 -- OK

argument 3 -- OK

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Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
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No. of Words: 472 350
No. of Characters: 2380 1500
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Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.661 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.042 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.719 2.4
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Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.522 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.736 7.5
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Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.303 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.512 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.09 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5