The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a Relannian newspaper.
Industry analysts report that the number of dairy farms in Relanna has increased by 25 percent over the last decade. Also, recent innovations in milking technology make it possible for farmers to significantly increase the efficiency of the milking process, allowing them to collect more milk in less time with minimal human intervention. In fact, data from the Relannian Department of Agriculture indicate that labor costs at the majority of Relannian dairy farms are actually lower now than they were ten years ago. Despite increased efficiency and lower labor costs, a carton of cream — a dairy product made from milk — at the local food market costs twice as much as it did two years ago. The only explanation for this dramatic price increase is that farmers are inflating the price of cream to increase their profits.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
Breaking down this editors' writeup, it analyses different issues and possibilities for the genral increase of dairy products. Although they have been logically well stated, it is tantamount to explore other plausible reason why prices of dairy products would have been inflated. This write up seeks to explore alternative possibilities for these price changes.
Firstly, as regards the technolgy innovation, it makes sense that farmers' time has been significantly saved during the milking process, however, the writer never discusses the cost of these technological innovations. Such devices might be expensive to purchase and maintain, making sure that the farmers add a markup cost while producing each unit of milk. So, although labor cost has reduced, there wasn't ay data around the technological costs. This could be a plausible reason for general incresed rices of dairy products
Secondly, it is common knowledge that most farms are in rural areas and the farmers extract just the raw milk from cows. These raw products are then transferred to factories that further process them and convert them to usable 'cartons' of cream. That said, it is very possible that extra cost of production has been factored into the price by the time it gets to the food market. Hidden costs like the cost for transportation, cost for the factory workers, cost for the other ingridients added to the milk to make it human-friendly, secret-recepies, branding, amongst others can further account for the increase in price between the farm and the local market. It is worthy to note that the farmers are most likely not in control of this final price as they only produce the raw material.
Thirdly, based on the population cencus, there are more people on earth than there were 10 years ago. Although it was never stated, it remains a possibility that the Relannian community also grew significantly. To producs enough milk to keep up with the skyrocketing population, more cows would have needed to be reared and therefore, more human labor employed. This means equivocally that even though the cost of labor reduced, the total amount of individual labor needs have increased, hence, might be costing more invariably to produce dairy products.
In conclusion, items cost more in the market now than they did 10 years ago - thanks to the powerful invincible hands of inflation. The market's general inflation pushes prices of all products upwards. This, coupled with other reason as stated above are alternative explanations for the observed price increase of dairy products in the Relannian community.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 13 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 419 350
No. of Characters: 2120 1500
No. of Different Words: 225 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.524 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.06 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.642 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 145 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.053 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.674 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.3 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.542 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.062 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 20, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'editors'' or 'editor's'?
Suggestion: editors'; editor's
Breaking down this editors writeup, it analyses different issues a...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 401, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: wasn't
... although labor cost has reduced, there wasnt ay data around the technological costs....
^^^^^
Line 8, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... invariably to produce dairy products. In conclusion, items cost more in the ma...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, hence, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly, well, while, as regards, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2180.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 418.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.21531100478 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52162009685 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75474735879 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.55023923445 0.468620217663 117% => OK
syllable_count: 669.6 705.55239521 95% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.8603753209 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.111111111 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.2222222222 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.5 5.70786347227 131% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 0.0 6.88822355289 0% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.107259302195 0.218282227539 49% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.037099505061 0.0743258471296 50% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0344231732161 0.0701772020484 49% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0640676825953 0.128457276422 50% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0156766733657 0.0628817314937 25% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 14.3799401198 103% => 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: 13.29 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.16 8.32208582834 110% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => 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.