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.
In the letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette, it is stated that the town council of Balmer should limit the number of mopeds rented by the island’s moped rental company form 50 per day to 25 per day during the summer seasons to reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians. This conclusion is based on the idea that limiting the number of rentals will attain a fifty percent annual reduction in moped accidents and population increases during the summer months. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, two questions must be answered.
First of all, is Seaville town similar to Balmer Island? Will enforcing similar limits on moped rentals as Seaville town reduce moped accidents? It is possible that the laws applied in Seaville town may not be viable in Balmer Island. Also, the population in Seaville town may be lesser when compared to Balmer Island and so the same rule or law may not work for both places. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, what if the roads are the cause of the accidents? Perhaps, Balmer Island has a lot of bad roads in the summer months and this is the main cause of accidents. If the number of rented mopeds per day is reduced and there are still bad roads, the number of accidents that occur may not reduce. If either if these scenarios are true, then the conclusion drawn from the original argument does not hold water.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now is considerably flawed due to the reliance of several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer the questions above and offer more evidence, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation to limit the number of mopeds rented per day.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 315 350
No. of Characters: 1489 1500
No. of Different Words: 147 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.213 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.727 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.52 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 117 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 65 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 51 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 29 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.636 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.352 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.57 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.094 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 311, Rule ID: IF_IS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
...ts that occur may not reduce. If either if these scenarios are true, then the conc...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 13.0 28.8173652695 45% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1531.0 2260.96107784 68% => OK
No of words: 315.0 441.139720559 71% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.86031746032 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.21286593061 4.56307096286 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61577669726 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 151.0 204.123752495 74% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.479365079365 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 478.8 705.55239521 68% => 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: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => 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: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.8858995653 57.8364921388 110% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.357142857 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.5 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.64285714286 5.70786347227 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.321036593911 0.218282227539 147% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.106516375784 0.0743258471296 143% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.102976218879 0.0701772020484 147% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.18643765266 0.128457276422 145% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.11244662367 0.0628817314937 179% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.2 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.19 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 98.500998004 70% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.