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 reading passage concludes that Prunty County should adapt the same improvements as Butler County in an attempt to lower the number of accidents. Even though the author provides several reasons why such conclusion is plausible, it is rife with holes and assumptions and such flaws should be eliminated in order for the author to justify his/her claim. The flaws the passage contains will be declared below.
First of all, the author assumes that the cause of the accidents are due to drivers driving in high speed. However, high speed may not be the actual cause of the accidents. There could be many reasons why accidents occur in the highway such as, drunk driving, cutting-off other drivers dangerously, or abruptly lowering the speed which may surprise the driver who was driving right behind. Furthermore, the causal effect of exceeding the speed limit and accidents occurring should be clarified. Even if the patrol result shows that many people are exceeding the speed limit, the patrol might have been done at a specific time such as in the morning when majority of the accidents happened late at night. The author should clarify such evidences in order to warrant his/her claim.
In addition, the causes of the accidents and the highway situation in Prunty County may not be the same as in Butler County. The Prunty County may already have large enough lane widths, has smooth highways, and has full visibility at dangerous intersections and does not need to be changed. The cause of the accidents occurred in Prunty County may actually due to drunk driving. In this case, even if the highway is safe in all aspects, accidents can happen because the driver is not paying any attention what is going on while he/she is driving. The author should further investigate if the causes of accidents occurring in Prunty County is due to narrow lane widths, rough highways, and lack of visibility.
Last and foremost, the reason the number of accidents decreased in Butler County may not because of the changes described in the passage. Simply, fewer people may be using the major city roads nowadays, or people who have been causing such accidents might have moved out of the county. Or else, less people may own cars since more people are using the public transportations. For the author to use such evidence to justify his/her claim, he/she would have to circumspect the causes of decrease in the number of accidents in Butler County.
To sum up, even though the reading passage may seem plausible, through thorough investigation and reading the passage in multiple point of views, it does not stand a chance of justification. The author should provide us more information and investigate further of the causes of the accidents and clarify the assumptions that has been made.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 475 350
No. of Characters: 2274 1500
No. of Different Words: 206 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.668 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.787 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.467 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 107 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.75 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.191 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.362 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.565 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.147 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
The author of the reading passage conclu...
^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ssage contains will be declared below. First of all, the author assumes that th...
^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ces in order to warrant his/her claim. In addition, the causes of the accidents...
^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ough highways, and lack of visibility. Last and foremost, the reason the number...
^^
Line 4, column 297, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
... have moved out of the county. Or else, less people may own cars since more people a...
^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... number of accidents in Butler County. To sum up, even though the reading passa...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, so, while, in addition, such as, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2330.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 470.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 4.95744680851 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65612321451 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.55922690907 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.442553191489 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 711.0 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.6102930048 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.5 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.5 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.45 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 15.0 6.88822355289 218% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.194701373851 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0697117133851 0.0743258471296 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0644494782911 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.105466747698 0.128457276422 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0603131851778 0.0628817314937 96% => 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: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.73 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
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.