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.
According to the argument, the Maple county council has reached a conclusion that the measure that would prevent development of the farmland in the county , if applied, will lead to a significant increase in housing prices. The council has reached this conclusion based on the effects on the prices of houses in Pine county after a measure that restricts development of new residential housing was enforced fifteen years ago. However, the council must provide answers to three questions before the argument and the prediction can be evaluated.
Firstly, Is there a demand for housing in Maple county all the time? The council prematurely assumes that there will always be families that are looking for new houses in Maple County. It is possible that Maple county is situated at a rural place with poor connectivity to the city. It is also possible that there are more houses than there are families in Maple county. If any of the above is true, then there will be no demand for housing in Maple county, thus severely weakening the councils prediction.
Secondly, Are Pine County and Maple County roughly comparable? The council assumes unwarrantedly that the physical conditions and the demography in Maple county and Pine county are similar. The proponents also assume prematurely that the price increase in Pine County is a direct consequence of the restriction enforced on the County. It is possible that Pine County is an area for the affluent whereas Maple county is not. Further, it is also possible that Pine county is at the near vicinity of a big company like Apple or Microsoft which could have influenced the housing prices in the County. If any of the above scenarios is true, then the councils prediction will not hold water.
Finally, Even if Pine County and Maple county are comparable, Is it true that the only way to limit the new housing is by enforcing a restriction on the farmland? It is possible that the developers who are trying to build new houses could use wasteland in the County to build new housing. Further, it is also possible that these developers renovate existing houses to include more houses. If any of the above cases holds merit, the prediction of the council is severely weakened.
In conclusion, the argument and the prediction as it stands now does not hold water due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the council provides answers to three questions above and offer more evidence, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the prediction that enforcing restrictions preventing the development of farmlands in Maple County will lead to increase in housing prices in the County.
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: 20 15
No. of Words: 443 350
No. of Characters: 2156 1500
No. of Different Words: 170 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.588 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.867 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.618 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 161 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.15 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.469 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.4 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.584 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.148 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 155, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...evelopment of the farmland in the county , if applied, will lead to a significant ...
^^
Line 5, column 487, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'councils'' or 'council's'?
Suggestion: councils'; council's
...ple county, thus severely weakening the councils prediction. Secondly, Are Pine Cou...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 646, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'councils'' or 'council's'?
Suggestion: councils'; council's
...f the above scenarios is true, then the councils prediction will not hold water. Fi...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, firstly, however, if, look, second, secondly, so, then, thus, whereas, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2216.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 443.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 5.00225733634 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58776254615 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69142542119 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 177.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.399548532731 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 705.6 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.1983082438 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.8 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.15 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.3 5.70786347227 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => 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: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.267541609135 0.218282227539 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.103263069683 0.0743258471296 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0539725382663 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.174547565014 0.128457276422 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0290832966856 0.0628817314937 46% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => 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: 11.72 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => 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.