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 states that the approach Prunty County adopted failed to improve highway safety while the attempt by Butler County succeeded. Therefore, Prunty County should undertake the same method as Butler County. However, the author needs to provide more evidence to justify his claim.
First, it is mentioned that the number of accidents has not decreased. As a result, the author claims that the improvement doesn't work. Yet, the information of percentage of accidents is not offered. It is possible that the increased number of accidents is due to the increased number of drivers in Prunty County. For example, there could be a huge construction and make a lot of workers move into the county. Although the actual number of accidents is 5 percent higher, the number of drivers here is 20 percent higher than before.
Even if the percentage of accidents increases after the improvement project, the author fails to provide information about how serious those accidents are. It might be possible that most of the accidents this year only slightly injure people while a large proportion of accidents before always made people seriously injured or dead. For example, 60 percent of accidents in Prunty County the year before the improvement resulted in people being dead. After the attempt had been taken, only 10 percent of the people involved in the accidents need to stay in the hospital to recover from severe injury.
The author also says that the approach took by Butler County works due to the fact the there are 25 percent fewer reported accidents compared to five years ago. Nevertheless, there is no information about the years in between. The author could possibly only provide the records that substantiate his claim and hide the rest. For example, the number of accidents after Butler County took the improvement is 50 percent higher than its previous year. The reason could be that people had more confidence when they were driving because they thought the road had been wider and it was harder for them to crash into another vehicle.
To substantiate the author's argument, he should provide the above evidence.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 353 350
No. of Characters: 1737 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.335 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.921 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.474 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 88 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 53 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.579 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.893 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.562 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.093 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 124, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
... the author claims that the improvement doesnt work. Yet, the information of percentag...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 288, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...idents is due to the increased number of drivers in Prunty County. For example, t...
^^
Line 7, column 239, Rule ID: MAY_COULD_POSSIBLY[1]
Message: Use simply 'could'.
Suggestion: could
... about the years in between. The author could possibly only provide the records that substanti...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 21, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...nother vehicle. To substantiate the authors argument, he should provide the above e...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, nevertheless, so, therefore, while, for example, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1784.0 2260.96107784 79% => OK
No of words: 352.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.06818181818 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.33147354134 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.52702336899 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 171.0 204.123752495 84% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.485795454545 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 549.0 705.55239521 78% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 38.4669516753 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.8947368421 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.5263157895 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.78947368421 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.2173209657 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0709591417286 0.0743258471296 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0732580750511 0.0701772020484 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.116074780907 0.128457276422 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0715556484538 0.0628817314937 114% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.7 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.13 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.71 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 71.0 98.500998004 72% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 5.5 12.3882235529 44% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.