"Commuters complain that increased rush-hour traffic on Blue Highway between the suburbs and the city center has doubled their commuting time. The favored proposal of the motorists' lobby is to widen the highway, adding an additional lane of traffic. But last year's addition of a lane to the nearby Green Highway was followed by a worsening of traffic jams on it. A better alternative is to add a bicycle lane to Blue Highway. Many area residents are keen bicyclists. A bicycle lane would encourage them to use bicycles to commute, and so would reduce rush-hour traffic rather than fostering an increase."
In the editorial, from the local newspaper, it is stated that opponents of the motorists’ lobby’s plan to add another lane to Blue Highway have instead advocated that a bicycle lane be constructed in order to alleviate the highway’s traffic issues. The opponents have come to this conclusion based on the issues faced by Green Highway last year as well as the keen interest in bicycling of the area’s local residents. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, three questions must be answered.
First of all, are Green Highway and the Blue Highway roughly comparable? In other words, can circumstances from one highway be used to make generalizations and predictions about the other? It is possible that Green Highway and Blue Highway are not similar at all--perhaps Green Highway runs through residential neighborhoods, whereas Blue Highway is located mostly in rural, unpopulated sections of the city. Further, there is a possibility that the quality of the highways is markedly different, with Green Highway’s roads falling apart and Blue Highway’s in pristine condition. If either of these scenarios has merit then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, do a majority of the area residents interested in biking live within biking distance of their places of employment? The opponents in the argument prematurely assume that many of the residents in the town will bike to work in the morning rather than drive their cars. However, this might not be the case. Perhaps the average distance from home to work is over 15 miles, and that’s why many of the residents are essentially obligated to take the highway-even if they cannot do so due to the logistics of their situations, then only one form of transportation (the car via the highway) is possible. If the above is true, then the argument does not hold water.
Further, are the last year’s condition and this year’s conditions roughly comparable? The opponents argue on the basis of the last year’s data of the Green Highway that the increment in lane exacerbated the issue of traffic jams. Perhaps in this year, the traffic jams might have significantly reduced than the last year’s average. If this condition hold true then the opponents’ conclusion based on the evidence would be significantly flawed.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer the three questions above and offer more evidence (perhaps in the form of a systematic research study), then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation to add a bike lane to Blue Highway.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 445 350
No. of Characters: 2217 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.593 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.982 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.823 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.421 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.957 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.319 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.554 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.07 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 94, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[2]
Message: The verb 'can' requires the base form of the verb: 'circumstance'
Suggestion: circumstance
...roughly comparable? In other words, can circumstances from one highway be used to make genera...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 591, 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.
...e Highway's in pristine condition. If either of these scenarios has merit the...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, well, whereas, in conclusion, as well as, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2336.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 444.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.26126126126 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5903493882 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.14299764197 2.78398813304 113% => OK
Unique words: 217.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.488738738739 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 723.6 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.9861682712 57.8364921388 119% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.947368421 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.3684210526 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.21052631579 5.70786347227 109% => 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 : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.16928032674 0.218282227539 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0559483313764 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.061889529519 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0976035780691 0.128457276422 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0509145031685 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.52 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.65 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 109.0 98.500998004 111% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => 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: 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.