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.
The letter written to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette suggests that 50% annual reduction in moped accidents can be achieved if the Balmer island limits the number of mopeds that can be rented per day during the summer season. Letter asserts that during the summer island sees an uptick of at most 100,000 tourists thus reducing the mopeds hired on rent can alleviate the accidents involving pedestrian and mopeds.Additionally, it states that a nearby island implemented similar provision and they saw a decrease in annual traffic accidents involving mopeds and street walkers. However, before the argument asserted in the letter can be properly analysed, answers to two question are required.
Firstly, are the island of Seaville and island of Balmer comparable in every aspect? The letter doesn’t clarify the state of other island and it can be the case the situation and aura of both the island is quite different and because of that its probable that the provisions taken of there to reduce the accidents might not be helpful in Balmer Island. Perhaps, the Island of Seaville is barren and very few people live there, and even fewer tourist visit to that island, thus it was feasible for the administration to restrict the number of mopeds rental without causing chaos by shortage of vehicles. Moreover, It may be the case that the annual 50% reduction in traffic in Island looks huge just in percentage term and due to the trifling number of visitors earlier the number that used to be 2 accidents involving per year has shrunk to 1 accident per year. Therefore, may be the copious reduction seen in the Seaville wont happen in the Balmer Island. If any of the above scenarios is true then the position stated in the letter doesn’t hold water.
Secondly, is reducing the number of vehicles during summer sufficient to cause annual reduction in accidents? As it is not clear in the letter that whether the accident involving mopeds and street walkers happen at other time of the year as well therefore it cannot be assumed that just by reduction of number of mopeds during summer would bring the accident percentage when whole year is considered. For instance it can be the case that throughout the year the accidents occurring on the streets more or less remain the same, and the reason that it seems that it is due to increase in tourist is because more number of people are on the roads for business during flourishing season and thus making accidents visible to more number of people. Additionally, it might be that the due to rental limit more people start rental business and overall reduction in the number of mopeds on the road doesn’t happen at all. If anyone of the above evidence comes true than the argument made in the letter is significantly weakened.
In conclusion, argument made in the letter, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unstated assumptions. If the author of the letter provides answers to the questions asked above and a exhaustive study is done to analyse the answers given by the author , then the validity of the argument can be properly assessed.
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: 539 350
No. of Characters: 2549 1500
No. of Different Words: 226 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.818 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.729 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.473 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 213 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 33.688 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.779 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.875 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.38 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.556 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.115 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 216, Rule ID: THE_FALL_SEASON[1]
Message: Use simply 'summer'.
Suggestion: summer
...opeds that can be rented per day during the summer season. Letter asserts that during the summer ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 422, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: Additionally
...cidents involving pedestrian and mopeds.Additionally, it states that a nearby island impleme...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 949, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...n the Seaville wont happen in the Balmer Island. If any of the above scenarios is...
^^
Line 4, column 959, 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.
...ille wont happen in the Balmer Island. If any of the above scenarios is true then...
^^
Line 6, column 914, 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.
...peds on the road doesn’t happen at all. If anyone of the above evidence comes true...
^^
Line 8, column 217, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...nswers to the questions asked above and a exhaustive study is done to analyse the...
^
Line 8, column 286, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
... analyse the answers given by the author , then the validity of the argument can b...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, look, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, thus, well, for instance, in conclusion, more or less
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 79.0 55.5748502994 142% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2607.0 2260.96107784 115% => OK
No of words: 535.0 441.139720559 121% => OK
Chars per words: 4.87289719626 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.80937282943 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6112838994 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 229.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.428037383178 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 816.3 705.55239521 116% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
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: 33.0 22.8473053892 144% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 88.6537330009 57.8364921388 153% => OK
Chars per sentence: 162.9375 119.503703932 136% => OK
Words per sentence: 33.4375 23.324526521 143% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.875 5.70786347227 155% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.342070828789 0.218282227539 157% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.123263230613 0.0743258471296 166% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0950973749837 0.0701772020484 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.207307355152 0.128457276422 161% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.121830016585 0.0628817314937 194% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.2 14.3799401198 127% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.44 48.3550499002 96% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.56 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.49 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 109.0 98.500998004 111% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.5 12.3882235529 141% => OK
gunning_fog: 15.2 11.1389221557 136% => OK
text_standard: 18.0 11.9071856287 151% => 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.