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 predicts that the restriction on the supply of new housing will lead to increase in home prices, if implemented. To support the claim, the council points out to the results obtained when similar policy was implemented in Pine County. Here, the council’s chain of reasoning seems true at first sight, however, it is based on certain unwarranted assumptions about what has happened in Pine 15 years ago and in Chestnut 10 years ago have a bearing on Maple today. Therefore, in order to better evaluate the claim and analyse its logical soundness, additional explanation is required to answer few questions that are foundational to the line of reasoning.
First of all, are Pine and Maple comparable? In other words, the council has assumed that the rise in prices of housing in Pine since the restrictions were applied would replicate on Maple County. However, it may not be the case since, Pine County may be in a situation 15 years ago where no land was in existence or all lands were transformed into housing, therefore, it led to rise in price. However, as the prompt states, there is still some farmland is available for which it is deliberating on its recommendation, thus, prices may not rise at all in the coming years. Further, the council has also assumed that even though the County is being overdeveloped, there is still a demand for housing which may not be the case. For example, it may find that the income level of its citizen is not increasing or they are unwilling to spend more money on housing, thus, restrictions may not lead to rise in prices. Without considering these details, the claim remains unsupported.
Secondly, are period 15 years ago comparable to the present time? In other words, the council has assumed that rise in prices occurred because of implementation of restrictions would result in similar rise even today. However, it may find that conditions that were existed 15 years ago in Pine are different from that of Maple today. For example, the purchasing power of Pine County was rising unprecedentedly and residents had penchant to invest in housing as long term investments, therefore, led to price rise. However, the condition of Maple today may be such that residents are moving out of it since there are no more opportunities exists for jobs, industry, and education and hospitals. Therefore, this movement of people may lead to excess supply and eventually prices will not rise if it implements the restrictions. Thus, without knowing the scope of the claim, this approach of the council cannot be considered accurately to predict the rise in prices.
Finally, are Chestnut and Maple not comparable? In other words, the council has assumed that despite the implementation of restriction on housing, price had not risen, but the Chestnut and Maple are distinguishable on the basis of their characteristics, therefore, rejected the claim of proponents. However, it may find that Chestnut had similar number of industries, jobs, and economic opportunities and same number of population 10 years ago as it is today with Maple. Thus, price would increase surely. Further, it may also find that Chestnut had available farmland 10 years ago for further development, thus, restrictions stemmed the price rise. Hence, the restrictions, if imposed in Maple may not result in what has been predicted since it has existing farmland to be developed. Thus, if any of these conditions were true, then the claim is significantly weakened.
While concluding, with the lack of comprehensive chain of reasoning, the claim as it stands now, is unpersuasive. If the council if able to offer more answers perhaps in the form of research study covering income level of residents, their inclination towards buying property, rise in number of population and rise in economic opportunities, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the claim.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 645 350
No. of Characters: 3158 1500
No. of Different Words: 251 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.04 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.896 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.804 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 207 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 166 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 109 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 78 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.889 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.633 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.926 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.311 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.474 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.07 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 130, Rule ID: IF_IS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
...ds now, is unpersuasive. If the council if able to offer more answers perhaps in t...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, thus, while, for example, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 36.0 19.6327345309 183% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 93.0 55.5748502994 167% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3266.0 2260.96107784 144% => OK
No of words: 645.0 441.139720559 146% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.06356589147 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.03952876749 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94291419271 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 264.0 204.123752495 129% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.409302325581 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1020.6 705.55239521 145% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.9683533552 57.8364921388 107% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.962962963 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8888888889 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.62962962963 5.70786347227 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => 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: 0.132966994232 0.218282227539 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0439078329484 0.0743258471296 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0406335766899 0.0701772020484 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0829606044522 0.128457276422 65% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0301273790234 0.0628817314937 48% => 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: 14.3 14.3799401198 99% => 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: 12.36 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.98 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 131.0 98.500998004 133% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.