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 to the editor of the Balmer Island Gasetter sates that during the summer over 100,000 people visit the island. This gives rise to more accidents involving pedestrians and mopeds. The letter suggest to reduce the number of rental mopeds from 50 to 25 per day for a rental companies. The council believe that will attain 50 percent less accidents because a similar system was tried on a neighbouring island of Seaville. The argument seems logical at first glance. However, the argument lacks credibility as the author has overlooked a few vital points that are necessary for its logical convincing.
Firstly, the argument assumes that because of the increase in population due to the visitors visiting the island in summer there has been an rise in accidents which involves moped. For instance, it could be possible since the moped is the popular mode of transportation, the accidents are taking place not by the visitors but by the people of Balmer Island only. No data is presented that the visitors are responsible for the accidents. Without the data, that who are involved in the accidents happening in the island it cannot be assumed that the visitors are responsible and thus the assumption becomes feeble.
Secondly, the argument assumes that by reducing the number of rented moped from fifty to twenty five there would be less accidents on the road. It could be possible that with the reduction of the mopeds on the road, people might take other mode of transportation to travel around the island. There is no guarantee that this will lead to reduction in accidents further. The moped being the popular mode of transportation in the island, people might be visiting the island for moped driving. With the reduction of mopeds on the road, the visitors might reduce, this may affect economics of the island aslo.
Finally, the argument assumes that because a similar system was implemented in the neighboring island of Seaville, the system would work in Balmer Island also. It might be possible that Seaville might not have moped as their popular mode of transportation and they might be having other safe modes of travelling around the island. Last year, it is possible that Seaville received a less number of visitors than Balmer island and because of that they were able to achieve reduction in accidents cases. Assuming without the figures from Seaville, that balmer island will also achieve fifty percent reduction in accidents is dubious claim.
In sum, with the lack of profound analysis done on the island, supporting logics and comprehensive reasoning the argument seems to be ill- founded. However, the argument could have strenghtened if figures of Seaville island, tourists who use mopeds that are involved in accidents and also how reduction in mopeds will reduce accidents is mentioned only then the argument could be better.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 473 350
No. of Characters: 2338 1500
No. of Different Words: 193 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.664 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.943 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.556 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 186 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.524 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.455 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.476 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.355 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 202, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'suggest reducing'.
Suggestion: suggest reducing
...ving pedestrians and mopeds. The letter suggest to reduce the number of rental mopeds from 50 to ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 306, Rule ID: MASS_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error - use third-person verb forms for singular and mass nouns: 'believes'.
Suggestion: believes
...day for a rental companies. The council believe that will attain 50 percent less accide...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 342, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun accidents is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...cil believe that will attain 50 percent less accidents because a similar system was ...
^^^^
Line 1, column 430, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...d on a neighbouring island of Seaville. The argument seems logical at first glance....
^^^
Line 3, column 139, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...ing the island in summer there has been an rise in accidents which involves moped....
^^
Line 5, column 117, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun accidents is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...rom fifty to twenty five there would be less accidents on the road. It could be poss...
^^^^
Line 7, column 155, Rule ID: ALSO_SENT_END[1]
Message: 'Also' is not used at the end of the sentence. Use 'as well' instead.
Suggestion: as well
... the system would work in Balmer Island also. It might be possible that Seaville mig...
^^^^
Line 9, column 8, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...n accidents is dubious claim. In sum, with the lack of profound analysis done ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, for instance
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2396.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 473.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.06553911205 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66353547975 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61344818763 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.412262156448 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 748.8 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.857041755 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.095238095 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.5238095238 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.04761904762 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.33337474199 0.218282227539 153% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.110596678774 0.0743258471296 149% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0845834573634 0.0701772020484 121% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.203533769706 0.128457276422 158% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0416626688367 0.0628817314937 66% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
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: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.93 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.