The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette.
"The population on Balmer Island increases to 100,000 during the summer months. To reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, the town council of Balmer Island plans to limit the number of mopeds rented by each of the island's six moped rental companies from 50 per day to 30 per day during the summer season. Last year, the neighboring island of Torseau enforced similar limits on moped rentals and saw a 50 percent reduction in moped accidents. We predict that putting these limits into effect on Balmer Island will result in the same reduction in moped accidents."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
In the letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazatte, the author states the plan of the town council of Balmer Islands to limit the number of mopeds rented in the island with an aim to reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians. The author seems to base his conclusion primarily on the observation made of neighboring island of Torseau, which if true, might indicate that the prediction could hold water. However, as it stands now, the predictions seem bleak and in dire need of three additional answers before evaluating its plausibility.
First of all, the author seems to emphasize that the case of neighboring island of Torseau would fit perfectly in case of Balmer Island too. What if the nature of business, households, and transportation of the island of Torseau are entirely different than the Balmer Island? If this were the case, the predictions drawn by the author would be highly undermined. In order to strength his stance, the author must provide the answers to support the compliance of the island of Torseau and Balmer Island in a way that would justify using of similar remedial methods of controlling accidents in both islands.
Moreover, the author seems to assume that the 50 percent reduction in moped accidents in the island of Torseau is a very significant reduction. What if the data of accidents, when presented in terms of numbers instead of percentage is not that significant? For instance, if the number of accidents before and after the remedy were 2 and 1 respectively, the reduction percentage would be 50 percent, which apparently misleads the actual scenario of the accidents in that island. Thus, the author must elucidate his letter by clearly illustrating complete data and pattern of accidents before recommending it for the Balmer Islands.
Finally, the author seems to assume that the reduction of per day rental limit of mopeds from 50 to 30 would solve the problem entirely, even if adopted. What exactly is the basis of reduction of limit by 20 numbers? Would that suffice or be insufficient? Would that not affect the daily lifestyle and mobility of inhabitants and tourists? The author seems to neglect myriad of questions to hastly conclude the result. Such haste application might prove counter-productive and yield more adverse effect, on contrary to the assumed outcome.
To conclude, the application of methodology as in case of the island of Torseau might well prove to be successful in Balmer Islands too. However, the author provides a very few concrete evidence for us to sense the plausibility of the predictions made. So, the letter would be more reliable if retrofitted with additional information and answers to the questions mentioned in above paragraphs, which would made it easier to evaluate the predictions.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 11 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 461 350
No. of Characters: 2287 1500
No. of Different Words: 205 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.634 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.961 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.805 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 180 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.05 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.687 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.65 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.337 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.543 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.093 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 369, Rule ID: IF_IS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
...of neighboring island of Torseau, which if true, might indicate that the predictio...
^^
Line 3, column 253, Rule ID: RATHER_THEN[2]
Message: Did you mean 'different 'from''? 'Different than' is often considered colloquial style.
Suggestion: from
...sland of Torseau are entirely different than the Balmer Island? If this were the cas...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
apparently, finally, first, however, if, moreover, so, thus, well, for instance, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 81.0 55.5748502994 146% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2346.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 461.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.08893709328 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63367139033 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89124801417 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.459869848156 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 727.2 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.8591756115 57.8364921388 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.3 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.05 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.65 5.70786347227 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.267061338921 0.218282227539 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0829673262381 0.0743258471296 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.115819868435 0.0701772020484 165% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.165385504179 0.128457276422 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.101392909118 0.0628817314937 161% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.92 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.