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 writer suggests that the limitations on the number of mopeds rented will decrease the accidents among mopeds and pedestrians. It is supported by Seaville island’s case where the number of accidents was successfully reduced by half with the limitation of mopeds. However, in order to vindicate whether the recommendation is proper, several questions are required to be answered.
Firstly, were there any changes in the number of visitors to Seaville island? Perhaps there would be new places introduced by TV shows or films to those who have never heard about there. If then, many people may have been curious about the new place and visited there instead of Seaville island during the vacation. Otherwise, perhaps there were some rumors that the shops and restaurants on the island sell products and dishes with overly high prices compared to other islands or cities. It might have made people seek another place rather than Seaville island. If the number of visitors to Seaville island decreased, the cause of reduced accidents cannot be fully explained by the limited moped numbers; it could be reduced as fewer pedestrians existed. Therefore, either of the cases that reduced the entire number of visitors to the island will weaken the writer’s recommendation.
Secondly, did the accidents increase among other transportations and pedestrians? It is unsound that the ones who were not able to rent a moped due to the limited available moped policy would travel to Seaville island on foot. Walking all day long is not easy at all, and especially those who visit the island for taking a rest during the vacation will not be likely to walk all day. It is possible that they might have rented another type of transportation, which functions similarly to mopeds. In this case, the accidents among the mopeds and pedestrians might be reduced. However, other accident types could increase such as motorcycles and pedestrians or bicycles and pedestrians. Although the policy might reduce the accidents among mopeds and pedestrians in Seaville island last year, other types of accidents might have increased. If then, the fundamental purpose of the policy to enhance the safety of the island is undermined, and the recommendation suggested by the writer cannot hold water.
To sum up, the recommendation, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on unwarranted assumptions. The reduced accidents in Seaville island and the limited moped number policy might have some correlation, thus, it supports the recommendation. However, it cannot be certainly verified unless the questions above are explained.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 421 350
No. of Characters: 2152 1500
No. of Different Words: 193 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.53 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.112 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.747 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 168 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.048 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.199 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.334 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.334 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, similarly, so, then, therefore, thus, such as, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2210.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 421.0 441.139720559 95% => OK
Chars per words: 5.24940617577 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52971130743 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86058142209 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 202.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.479809976247 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 696.6 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 32.7747068011 57.8364921388 57% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 105.238095238 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.0476190476 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.14285714286 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.223289210374 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0777071504437 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0554817259678 0.0701772020484 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.15004829685 0.128457276422 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0297469731824 0.0628817314937 47% => 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: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.17 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.19 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.