The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a Batavia newspaper.
"The department of agriculture in Batavia reports that the number of dairy farms throughout the country is now 25 percent greater than it was 10 years ago. During this same time period, however, the price of milk at the local Excello Food Market has increased from $1.50 to over $3.00 per gallon. To prevent farmers from continuing to receive excessive profits on an apparently increased supply of milk, the Batavia government should begin to regulate retail milk prices. Such regulation is necessary to ensure fair prices for consumers."
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, the writer suggests that the government should enforce regulations on the retail milk prices in Batavia as these regulations are necessary for fair prices. To show that these suggestions are reasonable, several questions need to be answered. As, should they prove to be answered, it may critically weaken the final conclusion.
First of all, the writer argues that according to the reports, in last 10 years the total number of dairy farms has increased by 25 percent, these farms are enjoying huge profits overall in the increase in the price of milk per gallon. The main question here is, what does the effect of an increase in a number of dairy farms have to do with the increased cost? The writer provides no compelling evidence that proves any significant relation of spiked prices of milk with the number of dairy farms in Batavia. Also, there is no clear evidence that helps us understand the clear reason for the increase in milk prices. There is a chance that the actual reason for the increase in these prices is due to newly added regulation that the government have included making sure the milk produced is healthy enough for the consumers. And due to this regulation dairy farms need to preprocess this milk which becomes the added cost and eventually leads to the increase in prices.
In the last 10 years, the local population of milk consumers have remained the same, or has increased as well? A possibility is that with the increase in the number of dairy farms the overall number of consumers might have also increased, or there might have been an exponential increase. As with this rise in the number of consumers the demand must have also simultaneously increased and due the lack of supply there was spike in the milk prices. There is no relevant surveys provided by the writer that helps us answer this question here, without which the writer's claims are not persuasive. Also do the dairy farms are actually earning these huge profits? Perhaps, due to the increase in prices the consumers might have stopped purchasing milk products and eventually might have forced the dairy farms to increase the prices due to number of new dairy farms might have increased the competition in the market. As this is the case then it seriously undermines the writers contention.
In conclusion, we see that the writer claims are based on number of assumptions which eventually raises a few questions. Hence more information or evidence is needed to fully evaluate the strength of the claims here. Namely, we would need to know, does the increase in a number of dairies is really relevant to the spike in milk prices, have the numbered of consumers and the demand eventually increased with it and whether the dairy farms are really earning profits, and what is the main reason of that.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 485 350
No. of Characters: 2296 1500
No. of Different Words: 185 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.693 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.734 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.477 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 159 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 103 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.526 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.057 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.361 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.361 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.15 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 601, Rule ID: MASS_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using third-person verb forms for singular and mass nouns: 'does'.
Suggestion: does
...writers claims are not persuasive. Also do the dairy farms are actually earning th...
^^
Line 3, column 915, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “As” 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.
...ncreased the competition in the market. As this is the case then it seriously unde...
^^
Line 3, column 968, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'writers'' or 'writer's'?
Suggestion: writers'; writer's
...e case then it seriously undermines the writers contention. In conclusion, we see that...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 121, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...hich eventually raises a few questions. Hence more information or evidence is needed ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, hence, if, may, really, so, then, well, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2343.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 485.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 4.83092783505 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69283662038 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.53980616746 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.40206185567 0.468620217663 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 725.4 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.4706199669 57.8364921388 106% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.315789474 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.5263157895 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.73684210526 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.146739882571 0.218282227539 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0537892408341 0.0743258471296 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0434034805597 0.0701772020484 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0917899735698 0.128457276422 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0319568545996 0.0628817314937 51% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.03 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.87 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.