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.
To evaluate whether the recommendation to limit the number of mopeds rentals will produce the desired effect of reducing the number of moped accidents in 50 percent during the year, we need to answer questions related to when most accidents happen, the cause of the accidents, where the accidents happen, and the expected increase in population during summer. Let's evaluate one by one.
First, the recommendation will only work if the accidents are concentrated during the summer. This is the first question we should evaluate, as if the accidents are distributed uniformly throughout the year (or more concentrated in other seasons rather than the summer), the reduction in moped rental companies from 50 per day to 25 per day during summer will not be sufficient to allow the island to attain the 50 percent annual reduction in moped accidents.
Assuming that most accidents occur in summer, we still need to assess the primary cause of the accidents. Are accidents primarily caused by people or by mopeds? If we find that the primary cause for accidents are people, and not mopeds, the recommendation still might fail. That is because people will still collide with mopeds, as in the summer there will be significantly more people in the streets, regardless of the reduction of mopeds in circulation.
Even if we confirm that most accidents happen during summer and the mopeds are the main reason provoking the accidents, we also must check whether the accidents are concentrated in specific regions of the island or uniformly distributed throughout its land. If the accidents are limited to (or more concentrated in) a specific region of the city, a reduction in rentals that does not address that difference will also produce unsuccessful results.
Finally, assuming that we successfully answer all previously stated questions, the recommendation still might fail. We must check whether accidents are proportional to the number of additional people circulating in the streets during summer, and that the total population does not surpass 100,000 people during summer. If we verify that the number of accidents is proportional to the total population, if the population increases over this threshold, the recommendation still will not lead to 50 percent reduction in accidents during the course of a year.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 372 350
No. of Characters: 1899 1500
No. of Different Words: 141 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.392 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.105 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.875 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 72 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.615 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 17.095 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.445 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.668 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.248 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 361, Rule ID: LETS_LET[1]
Message: Did you mean 'Let's'?
Suggestion: Let's
...d increase in population during summer. Lets evaluate one by one. First, the reco...
^^^^
Line 9, column 528, Rule ID: DURING_THE_COURSE_OF[1]
Message: Use simply 'during'.
Suggestion: during
...ad to 50 percent reduction in accidents during the course of a year.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, if, so, still
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1946.0 2260.96107784 86% => OK
No of words: 372.0 441.139720559 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.2311827957 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.39173103935 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93057113823 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 149.0 204.123752495 73% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.400537634409 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 594.0 705.55239521 84% => 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: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => 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: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 102.609387439 57.8364921388 177% => OK
Chars per sentence: 149.692307692 119.503703932 125% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.6153846154 23.324526521 123% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.07692307692 5.70786347227 54% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 0.0 8.20758483034 0% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.214299254987 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0869223114582 0.0743258471296 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0677943619867 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.138505939517 0.128457276422 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0450877884927 0.0628817314937 72% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.5 14.3799401198 122% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.65 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.12 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.