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 that appeared to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette it is stated that by reducing the number of mopeds rented out by moped rental companies from 50 mopeds to 25 mopeds per day would lead to an annual reduction of moped accidents by fifty percent. The author's argument is based on the fact that the similar restrictions that were imposed in Seaville town last year, lead to a fifty percent decrease in annual moped accidents. However, in order to better evaluate the author's recommendation following questions need to be answered.
Firstly, are Seaville Town and Balmer Island comparable? In other words can the statistics obtained from Seaville Town can be used to make predictions in Balmer Island? It is possible that Seaville Town has a better traffic system in place in terms of wider roads and traffic lights than Balmer Island. Further, it is possible that the moped users in Seaville Town are in general more careful and follow traffic rules more obediently than the moped users in Balmer Island. If any of the above holds true it would be a major hit for the author's recommendation.
Secondly, even if Seaville Town and Balmer Island are comparable does the success achieved in Seaville Town last year still holds true? Perhaps the immediate success obtained in Seaville town was short lived and in present time the number of morpid accidents have again increased drastically. Further, it can be possible that last summer the number of pedestrians was low due to a number of reasons and this year the number of pedestrians has increased again leading to more number of morpid accidents. If any of this is true the author's argument will fail to hold water.
Lastly, are the accidents between mopeds and pedestrians due to moped user's fault? The author has prematurely assumed that the accidents involved are entirely due to moped user's fault and as a result by reducing the number of mopeds rented per day by 50 percent the number of annual moped accidents will also reduce by 50 percent. It is possible that the majority of the moped accidents that occur in Balmer Islands are due to pedestrian's negligence. Further, it can be true that the quality of footpaths in Balmer Island is extremely poor which forces the pedestrians to walk on the roads meant for driving mopeds and as a result leading to more accidents. If the above stated holds true it would be a huge setback for the author's argument.
In conclusion, the author's argument, as it stands now, is extremely flawed because it depends on various unwarranted assumptions. If the author answers the above mentioned questions and offers some additional evidence, it would be possible to better evaluate the benefits of reducing the number of mopeds rented per day by fifty percent.
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: 19 15
No. of Words: 471 350
No. of Characters: 2268 1500
No. of Different Words: 178 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.659 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.815 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.534 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 179 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.789 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.89 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.362 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.566 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.129 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 271, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...f moped accidents by fifty percent. The authors argument is based on the fact that the ...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 486, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...owever, in order to better evaluate the authors recommendation following questions need...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 537, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ds true it would be a major hit for the authors recommendation. Secondly, even if Se...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 504, 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.
...ing to more number of morpid accidents. If any of this is true the authors argumen...
^^
Line 5, column 531, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...d accidents. If any of this is true the authors argument will fail to hold water. La...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 725, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...true it would be a huge setback for the authors argument. In conclusion, the authors...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 20, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...authors argument. In conclusion, the authors argument, as it stands now, is extremel...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, still, in conclusion, in general, as a result, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2306.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 471.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 4.89596602972 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65859790218 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.5967600767 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 182.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.386411889597 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 720.9 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.5306666938 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.368421053 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.7894736842 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.63157894737 5.70786347227 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => 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: 0.271167556161 0.218282227539 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0939286727436 0.0743258471296 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0785826551206 0.0701772020484 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.159137760266 0.128457276422 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0646547446773 0.0628817314937 103% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.44 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.88 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.