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.
The council of Maple County concludes that the housing prices in the county will increase if they prevent the development of farmland. This conclusion is based on the fact that the housing prices in Pine County ballooned when they limited the development of farmland. However, before conclusion can b properly evaluated, three questions must be answered.
Firstly, is Pine County comparable to Maple County? It might be possible that both the counties differ significantly from one another, and the prediction can’t be made from Pine County. It might be possible that Pine County has become very popular and thus there is an increase in the housing prices. Pine County might have become a center of lot of companies and due to employees shifting there has increased its price. The trend seen in Pine County cannot be generalized for Maple County if they are not comparable. Thus, it is important to analyze all the factors responsible for the increase in price of housing at Pine County. If this is the case than the conclusion made by the council does not hold water.
Secondly, do we know how much was the price of housing in Pine County? It might be possible that the housing prices in Pine County were quite low in the beginning and have recently increased relatively. The housing price in Maple County may already be more than Pine County and might not increase any more. It might be possible that Pine County was underdeveloped in the past and recently its price has increased. There can be many factors that might have affected the housing prices in Pine County. The council should consider all the different factors involved and track the housing prices of the County.
Thus, it is important to know the housing price in Pine County before the restrictions and after it.
Lastly, is Chestnut County comparable to Maple County? Perhaps, housing in Chestnut County is comparable to Maple County. If so, then Maple County’s housing price would remain the same since the housing price in Chestnut County remained same even after the restriction. The council should analyze Chestnut County and answer this important question without which the conclusion remains weak.
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 proposed conclusion of the increase in housing prices in Maple County.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 426 350
No. of Characters: 2083 1500
No. of Different Words: 169 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.543 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.89 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.517 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 159 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.522 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.996 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.609 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.42 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.585 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.183 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 634, 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.
...ase in price of housing at Pine County. If this is the case than the conclusion ma...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => 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: 2143.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 426.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.03051643192 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54310108192 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59689457761 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 172.0 204.123752495 84% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.403755868545 0.468620217663 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 665.1 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 39.88532712 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.1739130435 119.503703932 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.5217391304 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.86956521739 5.70786347227 68% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.26423230108 0.218282227539 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.118184000021 0.0743258471296 159% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0962312440926 0.0701772020484 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169112380192 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0851211044413 0.0628817314937 135% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.5 14.3799401198 80% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.89 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.09 8.32208582834 85% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 98.500998004 70% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => 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.