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 states that the efforts of Prunty county to improve highway safety by reducing the speed limit from 55 mph to 45 mph proved to be futile, since there was no apparent decrease in the number of accidents and drivers were still found to exceed the speed limit. Hence the author suggests that Prunty country should employ the same project which Butler country completed 5 years ago i.e. increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways and improving visibility at dangerous intersections. There are several points in this arguments which are questionable and certain evidences are required to evaluate this situation properly. They are as follows:
First of all, it is necessary to know whether the law of reduced speed limit was executed properly or not. It may be possible that Prunty county did not advertise the newly formed law effectively and failed to put sufficient amount of signboards along the highway, leaving people unaware of the new rule. Since it is mentioned that even after the introduction of the new rule, highway patrol found many divers exceeding the speed limit. Hence, there is a possibility that drivers were unaware of the new rule because of inefficiency on the county's part in publicizing the rule. If this is true, then the county must try to promulgate the law among the people and then check its effectiveness before taking any further steps.
Furthermore, the author suggests that Prunty county should undertake the same kind of road projects that Butler county introduced, which include increasing lane width, resurfacing rough highways and improving visibility at dangerous intersections. But the present condition of Prunty county roads is not made clear in the argument. If the condition of roads in Prunty county is already better than Butler county then the argument will immediately collapse. Thus, in order for the argument to hold true, the evidence regarding the present condition of the highway in Prunty county is required.
Even if the highway conditions in Prunty county are lacking and need to be ameliorated as mentioned in the argument, it it necessary to know whether the county possesses necessary funds to undertake these improvement projects. Completely remaking rough highways and expanding lane size are quite expensive projects which require large amount funding. If Prunty county does not have sufficient money to invest in such projects then there is not point in suggesting such schemes. The county must opt for other cheaper options to mitigate their problem.
Even if we assume that Prunty county has sufficient funds to undertake the projects which were employed by Butler county, this does not necessarily guarantee that this will lead to a decrease in the number of accidents. The author mentions that after lowering the speed limit from mph to mph, the drivers were still found to exceed the speed limit. If the drivers in Prunty county are notorious for their rash driving, no amount of road remaking and safety laws will substantially improve the situation. Hence, it is necessary to know the exact cause of the accidents, whether they are due to unsafe roads lack of safety rules or merely because of the reckless driving of the people of Prunty county.
In conclusion, the above evidences are necessary to be presented in order to efficiently assess the problem of accidents. Once these evidences are collected, only then a decision can be made about the further steps that are needed to be taken to abate the problem.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 574 350
No. of Characters: 2878 1500
No. of Different Words: 242 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.895 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.014 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.573 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 221 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 151 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 107 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.957 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.448 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.783 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.316 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.555 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.105 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 272, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
... still found to exceed the speed limit. Hence the author suggests that Prunty country...
^^^^^
Line 1, column 529, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...ersections. There are several points in this arguments which are questionable and ce...
^^^^
Line 13, column 118, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: it
...eliorated as mentioned in the argument, it it necessary to know whether the county po...
^^^^^
Line 13, column 352, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...cts which require large amount funding. If Prunty county does not have sufficient ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, hence, if, may, regarding, still, then, thus, in conclusion, kind of, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 77.0 55.5748502994 139% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2950.0 2260.96107784 130% => OK
No of words: 574.0 441.139720559 130% => OK
Chars per words: 5.1393728223 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.89472135074 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6350771727 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 254.0 204.123752495 124% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.442508710801 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 917.1 705.55239521 130% => 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: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.5597422879 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.090909091 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.0909090909 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.86363636364 5.70786347227 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => 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: 0.284143241224 0.218282227539 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0877850758939 0.0743258471296 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0583910554463 0.0701772020484 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.151963553682 0.128457276422 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0759315861371 0.0628817314937 121% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.83 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.25 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.