The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette.
"On Balmer Island, where mopeds serve as a popular form of transportation, the population increases to 100,000 during the summer months. To reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, the town council of Balmer Island should limit the number of mopeds rented by the island's moped rental companies from 50 per day to 25 per day during the summer season. By limiting the number of rentals, the town council will attain the 50 percent annual reduction in moped accidents that was achieved last year on the neighboring island of Seaville, when Seaville's town council enforced similar limits on moped rentals."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
It is pointed out from the letter to advocate a new policy about restricting the rental numbers of mopeds to reduce the accidents in summer time. However, the recommendation is based on unwarranted assumptions, which requires further examinations to claim it to be valid.
First of all, the main message conveyed from the letter is that the population using mopeds is increasing in summer time, and lead to lots of accidents. However, it is unknown whether the accidents peak during summer time or stay the same over the whole year. If the latter is the case, it is reasonable to state that the usage of mopeds is not the major reason to cause the accidents since the accident number keeps the same no matter how many more mopeds are on the road in summer time. Therefore, information about the change or the trend of the accident number needs to be revealed first before making the recommendation about restricting the rental numbers of mopeds since this claim is not supported by any evidence so far.
Another scenario to be considered is that even if there is a drastic change about the accident number across winter and summer time, it still lacks the evidence to prove that decreasing rental mopeds will solve the problem since there may be lots of other factors contributing to the phenomena. Before investigating other potential factors, such as a resident's driving behaviors, or changing of the traffic rules etc., it is dubious to assert the effectiveness of the recommendation. In other words, questions about residents’ behaviors relating to transportation needs to be asked and studied first, and only when the root causes are being analysed, can the editor claim the effectiveness of limiting the rental number of mopeds. Otherwise, those predictions of numbers are only the editors’ own guessing.
Last, another assumption that the editor holds is that the same policy has been enforced and achieved expected outcomes in neighboring island of Seaville. However, there might be countless differences between Balmer and Seaville Island, which undermines the suitability and the anticipated impact of the same policy. For instance, what if most of the mopeds are self-owned instead of rented? Then the outcome is foreseeable to be discounted even if the same policy is implemented in Balmer Island. More understanding of Balmer Island’s own challenges is essential to tailor a specific plan that can work better.
To sum up, lack of critical evidence relating to the accident number changes and other potential contributing factors, as well as incorrect assumption of the effectiveness neglecting the differences of two islands harm the validity of the recommendation.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 436 350
No. of Characters: 2201 1500
No. of Different Words: 213 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.57 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.048 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.873 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 113 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.311 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.581 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.075 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 134, Rule ID: SUMMER_TIME[2]
Message: Use simply 'summer'.
Suggestion: summer
...rs of mopeds to reduce the accidents in summer time. However, the recommendation is based o...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 110, Rule ID: SUMMER_TIME[2]
Message: Use simply 'summer'.
Suggestion: summer
...opulation using mopeds is increasing in summer time, and lead to lots of accidents. However...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 211, Rule ID: SUMMER_TIME[2]
Message: Use simply 'summer'.
Suggestion: summer
...known whether the accidents peak during summer time or stay the same over the whole year. I...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 477, Rule ID: SUMMER_TIME[2]
Message: Use simply 'summer'.
Suggestion: summer
...how many more mopeds are on the road in summer time. Therefore, information about the chang...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 121, Rule ID: SUMMER_TIME[2]
Message: Use simply 'summer'.
Suggestion: summer
...t the accident number across winter and summer time, it still lacks the evidence to prove t...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...a specific plan that can work better. To sum up, lack of critical evidence rel...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, may, so, still, then, therefore, well, for instance, such as, as well as, first of all, in other words, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 28.8173652695 52% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2262.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 436.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.1880733945 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56953094068 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95222244627 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.495412844037 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 717.3 705.55239521 102% => 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: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 65.8804551821 57.8364921388 114% => OK
Chars per sentence: 141.375 119.503703932 118% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.25 23.324526521 117% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.625 5.70786347227 151% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.240033698534 0.218282227539 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0805833128858 0.0743258471296 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0435539191347 0.0701772020484 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.126584829333 0.128457276422 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0422618799061 0.0628817314937 67% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.6 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.85 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.