The council of Maple County, concerned about the county's becoming overdeveloped, is debating a proposed measure that would prevent the development of existing farmland in the county. But the council is also concerned that such a restriction, by limiting the supply of new housing, could lead to significant increases in the price of housing in the county. Proponents of the measure note that Chestnut County established a similar measure ten years ago, and its housing prices have increased only modestly since. However, opponents of the measure note that Pine County adopted restrictions on the development of new residential housing fifteen years ago, and its housing prices have since more than doubled. The council currently predicts that the proposed measure, if passed, will result in a significant increase in housing prices in Maple County.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
In the argument, the council of Maple county concludes that there would be a discernible rise in the price of houses in its county if it adopts a policy of checking the supply of new buildings. They come to this conclusion by stating that this same policy was adopted in Pine County and it resulted in a surge in the price of the houses. While this may be true, the author’s claim rests on the following three unwarranted assumptions.
Could the trend in Pine county be an indication of what would happen to Maple County? Perhaps the population of these two counties differ significantly. The people in Pine County may have a small amount of people and in contrast, Maple county might have a smaller number. In this case it may not be cogent to compare what happens in one county to another. Furthermore, the surge in the cost of houses in Pine County might be an anomaly. It may not be an indication of future increases; there may be ephemeral factors that is making these houses exorbitant. One of these factors could be an increase in the amount of cement probably due to an increase in the price of transporting the cement. This could have caused an upsurge in the price houses in Pine county. If these scenarios are true, then the author’s conclusion is severely weakened.
Did the rise in price occur due to a reduction in the number of houses? It is possible that these houses became expensive because of other factors. Perhaps the price of these houses includes a fee for security which may not be included in the prices of houses generally. This could account for the higher price of houses because something else was added to the price. In addition, the cost of these houses may have increased because of the greed of the real tors who sell the home. These real tors may be taking an extraordinary amount of tax from houses they sell. The people buying this homes may now have to pay more because of tyhe avaricious nature of these real tors. This could account for the higher price in Pine county. If these cases are true, then the author’s claim holds no water.
Is the doubling of the price of houses in Pine county significant? It is possible that the price of houses in Pine county before it doubled might not be significant. It is possible that these houses increased to an amount below what home which are similar to it are being sold. It could increase from ten thousand to twenty thousand dollars, but similar homes worth the same price could be worth seven hundred thousand dollars. If these houses were to increase by ten thousand dollars, it may not be significant. A hundred percent increase from a small number is not equal to a doubling of a larger number. If these cases are true, then the price increase might not be significant hereby diminishing the validity of the author’s claim
In conclusion, it may be true than a reduction in the amount of homes built in maple county will result in a surge in the price of houses. However, as it stands now, the author’s argument stands on three assumptions that severely weaken its credibility. To bolster the validity of his claim, he must answer the three questions above.
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: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 30 15
No. of Words: 561 350
No. of Characters: 2535 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.867 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.519 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.389 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 103 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 72 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.7 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.963 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.533 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.334 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.334 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.112 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 278, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...which are similar to it are being sold. It could increase from ten thousand to twe...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, furthermore, however, if, may, so, then, while, in addition, in conclusion, in contrast
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 26.0 12.9520958084 201% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 85.0 55.5748502994 153% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2600.0 2260.96107784 115% => OK
No of words: 561.0 441.139720559 127% => OK
Chars per words: 4.63458110517 5.12650576532 90% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.86676880123 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.51788698992 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.365418894831 0.468620217663 78% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 826.2 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 13.0 4.96107784431 262% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 30.0 19.7664670659 152% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 42.4805314886 57.8364921388 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 86.6666666667 119.503703932 73% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.7 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.06666666667 5.70786347227 54% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 12.0 4.67664670659 257% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.106446378508 0.218282227539 49% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0421192962121 0.0743258471296 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0689107286904 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0820018482988 0.128457276422 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0631952935348 0.0628817314937 100% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.7 14.3799401198 67% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.57 12.5979740519 76% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.18 8.32208582834 86% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.