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 argument presents a recommendation that Prunty County should adopt a similar strategy as Butler County, that involves increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways, and improving visibility at dangerous intersections. The reason provided for this recommendation is that the current policy adopted last year to reduce speed limits from 55 to 45 mph has not resulted in a decreased number of accidents. Stated in this way, the argument depends on a number of unsubstantiated assumptions, in absence of which it is not possible to evaluate the merits of the argument correctly.
First, the author's recommendation depends on an inherent assumption that the speed limit reduction adopted last year has not worked at all. It is entirely possible that the number of people owning cars has increased significantly since the last year. If this is the case, then the speed limit reduction imposed last year has worked well enough provided that despite the rise in the number of vehicles on the road, the number of accidents has not increased significantly. The statistical data for a number of accidents before reducing the speed limits, and throughout the year is required to assess the effects of the adopted strategy.
Second, the argument assumes that Butler County and Prunty County are one and the same in all the factors that may affect the number of accidents. Without evidence that the number of vehicles on the road, how often people drive, and the driving capabilities of the people in both the counties are the same, the comparison provided does not furnish a good reason to consider the proposed solution. Perhaps the road quality, visibility, and other improvements were necessary for the Butler County because of their poor earlier state, and in Prunty County, their conditions are good enough comparatively.
Third, it is stated that Butler County has reported 25% fewer accidents last year than five years ago. For all we know, the number of accidents was extremely high because of the poor road quality, or perhaps the weather that reduces the visibility. If the number of accidents before adopting the said policy were not proportionate to that of Prunty County, then it undermines the argument's reasoning significantly. Also, no data is provided for the number of accidents this year in Butler County. It is possible that despite the 25% decrease in the number of accidents last year, it is significantly higher than what we have in Prunty County.
In sum, the argument is dependent on a number of unsubstantiated facts, and assumptions. To further bolster the argument the author must provide the evidence for (1) the data before and after adopting respective strategies in both the counties, (2) the similarity of the factors contributing to the number of accidents, and (3) proper justification to prove that the road conditions in the Prunty County are not good enough to prevent the number of accidents.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 478 350
No. of Characters: 2396 1500
No. of Different Words: 192 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.676 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.013 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.842 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 193 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 126 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 95 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.118 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.948 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.353 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.429 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.624 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.161 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 12, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...f the argument correctly. First, the authors recommendation depends on an inherent a...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 71, Rule ID: ONE_AND_THE_SAME[1]
Message: Use simply 'the same'.
Suggestion: the same
...hat Butler County and Prunty County are one and the same in all the factors that may affect the ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, may, second, so, then, third, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 12.9520958084 23% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2456.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 478.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13807531381 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67581127817 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90676957477 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 201.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.42050209205 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 765.0 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 8.0 1.67365269461 478% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 67.0583075316 57.8364921388 116% => OK
Chars per sentence: 144.470588235 119.503703932 121% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.1176470588 23.324526521 121% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.29411764706 5.70786347227 58% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.252757727392 0.218282227539 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0991928723579 0.0743258471296 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.05006158444 0.0701772020484 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.153984721325 0.128457276422 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0463541527494 0.0628817314937 74% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.8 14.3799401198 117% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.83 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.59 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.