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’s understanding that the increase in speeding violations is because of the road conditions of the Prunty County does not have a solid foundation to it. It is based on pure assumptions and can easily apart.
Firstly, the Prunty County has decreased the speed limit by 10 miles per hour without any concrete explanation for why the speed limit was changed from 55mph to 45mph other than highway safety. It could have begun the speed limit reduction by a smaller change, for example: 50 miles per hour. The smaller interval can be achieved easily and faster as compared to a larger change in the speed limit. The county does not state whether this change in speed has been corrected on all major highways in the county, failing which drivers may still be uninformed.
Secondly, the author does not take into account the fact that the development in the roads in Butler County was undertaken 5 years ago. The author does not state the number of vehicles, nor the type of vehicles passing through Butler County. The wearing of the roads depends on the amount of vehicles and the different type of vehicles using the road, for example: Roads used often by heavy vehicles are more prone to damage than those used by light motor vehicles. Furthermore, the weather conditions in Butler County as well as Prunty County have not been mentioned, which overlooks the fact that the new road built has been subject to 5 years of weather conditions. The present condition of the highways will paint a better picture about the state of the highways in the county.
Additionally, the author does not mention any statistics about the vehicle usage in the Prunty County. Accidents have not decreased and speed limit violations have increased is connected to the bad conditions of the road without any evidence by the author.
In conclusion, the author fails to provide a logical explanation as to why the County should undertake repairs to prevent accidents and speed violations. There is also no mention of what would happen if the repairs were undertaken, which again does not support the author’s point.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 357 350
No. of Characters: 1709 1500
No. of Different Words: 168 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.347 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.787 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.437 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 121 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 84 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 52 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 33 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.449 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.533 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.379 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.627 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.139 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 349, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[3]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...erval can be achieved easily and faster as compared to a larger change in the spee...
^^
Line 5, column 372, Rule ID: ADVERB_WORD_ORDER[9]
Message: The adverb 'often' is usually put before the verb 'used'.
Suggestion: often used
...cles using the road, for example: Roads used often by heavy vehicles are more prone to dam...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, still, well, as to, for example, in conclusion, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 8.0 28.8173652695 28% => OK
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1759.0 2260.96107784 78% => OK
No of words: 357.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92717086835 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34677393335 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.54074749737 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 175.0 204.123752495 86% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.490196078431 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 528.3 705.55239521 75% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.8981649832 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.266666667 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.0 5.70786347227 158% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.26132149749 0.218282227539 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0902652343426 0.0743258471296 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0754128489761 0.0701772020484 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.13547450209 0.128457276422 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0843418102668 0.0628817314937 134% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.61 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.18 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.