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 argument states that the council of Maple County is debating whether they should restrict the development of existing farmland in order to prevent the county from being overdeveloped. Currently, the council believes that imposing such restrictions would lead to a significant increase in housing prices in Maple County. The two sides presented in the argument are: supporters of the proposed restrictions with evidence of another county that established similar restrictions ten years ago, and doing well while opponents with evidence of yet another county with similar restrictions and adverse effects on house prices ever since. Stated this way, the argument's prediction is based on a number of assumptions essential to evaluate the merits of its anticipation.
First, proponents argue that Chestnut County seems to be doing well with only moderate increases in housing prices since it adopted similar restrictions 10 years ago. Is Chestnut County similar to Maple County in all the other aspects that may impact the housing prices? These factors include the current population of the county, population growth of the county including immigration in the future, current demand for houses or real estate, and trends of growth in these demands. Is it not possible that both these counties have disproportionate trends in population and real-estate demand growth over time? If true, this would seriously undermine the evidence presented by proponents.
Secondly, opponents state similar evidence stating that Pine County adopted such a strategy 15 years ago, and its housing prices are increasing so rapidly that currently, it is more than double what it was initially. In addition, to evaluate other factors that are crucial for such comparison, a significant time gap between the adoption of the proposed restrictions by counties taken as evidence by proponents and opponents needs to be evaluated thoroughly. What is the supply-to-demand ratio 15, and 10 years ago? How it has changed during this time? 5 years is enough time for the changing trends to become dominating in a market as volatile as real estate.
Lastly, the council's prediction is based on the inherent assumption that Maple County is more similar to Pine County presented by opponents than Chestnut County presented by proponents. The absence of any evidence calls into question this important assumption. If it is not true, it would not furnish a good reason to consider the council's prediction as valid.
In sum, the argument is flawed as it stands, and therefore unconvincing. It is based on a number of unsubstantiated assumptions that are critical to evaluating the validity of the council's prediction that adopting the proposed strategy would lead to increased prices in Maple County. To further bolster the argument, the author needs to provide facts or evidence to answer the above questions such as (1) How different or similar are these other counties to Maple County to compare its housing prices?, (2) How are real-estate demand and supply is changing in all these counties over time?, and (3) Which County is closer to Maple County considering factors like population, immigration, housing demands, and income level of people.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 509 350
No. of Characters: 2651 1500
No. of Different Words: 218 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.75 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.208 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.857 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 218 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 158 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 115 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 69 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.45 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.965 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.322 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.52 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.061 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 657, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguments'' or 'argument's'?
Suggestion: arguments'; argument's
...prices ever since. Stated this way, the arguments prediction is based on a number of assu...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 13, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'councils'' or 'council's'?
Suggestion: councils'; council's
...volatile as real estate. Lastly, the councils prediction is based on the inherent ass...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 332, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'councils'' or 'council's'?
Suggestion: councils'; council's
...t furnish a good reason to consider the councils prediction as valid. In sum, the ar...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 181, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'councils'' or 'council's'?
Suggestion: councils'; council's
...tical to evaluating the validity of the councils prediction that adopting the proposed s...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, therefore, well, while, in addition, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2710.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 509.0 441.139720559 115% => OK
Chars per words: 5.32416502947 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74984508646 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90632502578 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 227.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.445972495088 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 842.4 705.55239521 119% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 94.4861233198 57.8364921388 163% => OK
Chars per sentence: 135.5 119.503703932 113% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.45 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => 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: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.323968351073 0.218282227539 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.1028202262 0.0743258471296 138% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.102983273729 0.0701772020484 147% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.211281400407 0.128457276422 164% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0734133461433 0.0628817314937 117% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.4 14.3799401198 114% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.3550499002 78% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.57 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.