The following appeared in a memorandum from the planning department of an electric power company.
"Several recent surveys indicate that home owners are increasingly eager to conserve energy. At the same time, manufacturers are now marketing many home appliances, such as refrigerators and air conditioners, that are almost twice as energy efficient as those sold a decade ago. Also, new technologies for better home insulation and passive solar heating are readily available to reduce the energy needed for home heating. Therefore, the total demand for electricity in our area will not increase — and may decline slightly. Since our three electric generating plants in operation for the past twenty years have always met our needs, construction of new generating plants will not be necessary."
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.
In the memorandum, it is stated that the planning department of an electric power company is not considering the construction of new electric generating plants as there are more energy-efficient home appliances available in the market and for the past 20 years three old plants have always met their needs. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, three assumptions have to be analyzed.
First of all, the author has not mentioned how recent are the surveys taken. In other words, the surveys would be 5 years old and can be deemed 'recent' by the author. It is possible that the results of all these surveys would not hold good for the present situation at all. Perhaps the numbers of homeowners surveyed are very less or they are no longer staying in the same locality. Further, there is a possibility that the mindset of the homeowners has changed during that time period because no significant steps were taken by the local authorities for the same. If either of these assumptions holds true, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, the author has made a big assumption that the homeowners will buy new home appliances to conserve energy. There is no data or proof mentioned by the author that homeowners previously using the appliances will sell their old appliances to just buy new ones which can even cost them a fortune. It is possible that owners have brought a refrigerator just two weeks ago and just because the manufacturers launched an energy-efficient refrigerator a few days after the purchase, owners will not prefer buying a new one and put themselves in financial trouble. Perhaps they would have taken personal loans to buy a home appliance which would have put them in a debt. In an ideal world, owners would prefer selling all energy inefficient appliances, but if the reality is such that they cannot do so due to the logistics of their situation. If the above is true, then the argument does not hold water.
Finally, the area where the survey is taken is not mentioned. There is no data about the weather conditions of the homeowners whose survey has been taken. It is possible that the survey taken was someplace near the equator where the temperature goes above 40 degrees celsius. Hot and humid areas are required to use air conditioners on a large scale than the areas in a normal climate. Perhaps having just three 20 years old electric generating plants would not be enough. There is no guarantee that the plant will work in the same pristine condition even after 20 years. Further, there is a possibility that the population will increase dramatically in a few years and as mentioned by the author that electric generating plants have always met their needs would not hold true. If either of these scenarios holds true, then the argument is significantly weakened.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flaw due to its reliance on unwanted assumptions. If the author is able to offer more evidence (perhaps in form of a systematic research study) for the above situations, then it is possible to fully evaluate the viability of the recommendation to not construct any more electric generating plants.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 545 350
No. of Characters: 2634 1500
No. of Different Words: 238 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.832 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.833 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.783 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 169 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 129 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.708 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.31 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.458 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.292 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.476 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.085 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 64, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'flawed'.
Suggestion: flawed
...ment, as it stands now, is considerably flaw due to its reliance on unwanted assumpt...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2693.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 545.0 441.139720559 124% => OK
Chars per words: 4.94128440367 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.83169070408 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84452555727 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 249.0 204.123752495 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.456880733945 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 837.9 705.55239521 119% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.1847918124 57.8364921388 111% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.208333333 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.7083333333 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.375 5.70786347227 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.181260837393 0.218282227539 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0462126748381 0.0743258471296 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0498912709356 0.0701772020484 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0985870120883 0.128457276422 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0564110904096 0.0628817314937 90% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.67 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 109.0 98.500998004 111% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.