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 claims that decreasing the speed limit fail to improve highway safety, and in order to achieve it, they need to increase lane widths and resurface rough parts of high way. However, there are several aspects need to be clarified to substantiate this claim.
First, we need to have more data for the cause of accidents in the Prunty County. Whether it is cause by the overspeed or by the poor quality of the highway. The situation between Prunty County and Butler County can be different, and thus the successful measure in Bulter County not necessarily ensure the success in Prunty County. Maybe the lane width and the surface issue in Prunty county are not the root cause of the accidents. Therefore, copying the measure directly from other place may not be effective.
Second, we need to know executive practices of the law that decreases the speed limit. It is possible that the reason of failure comes from the effective practice to force people in Prunty County to follow the rule. If that is true, they need to hire more police or establish more camera to deter citizens from driving overspeed. Or, it is possible that the law is not noticed by citizen in Prunty County, therefore, they are still follow the speed limit as before. Hence, to evaluate the effectiveness of the law need more data from the executive practice of the law.
Moreover, we also need to preclude other factors that will affect the data gain from the Prunty County to conclude that the original measure is not effective. First, the population in the Prunty County will influence the accidents occurring in the area, that is, the more people driving in the highway the more cases of accident will happen. Thus, we need to understand wether there are increasing in population after the law legislated, if so, the population growth in the County may backfire the effectiveness of the law.
To sum up, the data presented in the claim cannot ensure that mimic the measure from Butler County will successfully decrease the accidents in the Prunty County. To judge whether a measure will be successful, it is necessary to know the statistical data of the cause of accidents, the practice of the execution of the law, and preclude other possible factors that will affect the result.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 389 350
No. of Characters: 1831 1500
No. of Different Words: 159 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.441 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.707 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.443 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 133 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 86 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 59 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.882 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.475 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.706 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.381 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.592 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.119 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 433, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'followed'.
Suggestion: followed
...runty County, therefore, they are still follow the speed limit as before. Hence, to ev...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, however, if, may, moreover, second, so, still, therefore, thus, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1887.0 2260.96107784 83% => OK
No of words: 389.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.85089974293 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44106776838 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.50650715051 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 166.0 204.123752495 81% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.426735218509 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 603.9 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.2710407217 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.0 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.8823529412 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.76470588235 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
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: 0.21121641555 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0762021714589 0.0743258471296 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0507356390427 0.0701772020484 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.128192457793 0.128457276422 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0371264916984 0.0628817314937 59% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.15 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.02 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.