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 fo | TOEFL IELTS GMAT GRE SAT ACT PTE ESL

Essay topics:

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.

In the letter to the editor, it is stated that the farmers are deliberately inflating the price of a carton of cream available at the local food market to make profits. To bolster the author's claim, he provides three specific shreds of evidence - the number of dairy farms in Relanna has increased by 25 percent, recent advances in the milking technology improves the efficiency by manifold and thereby less human intervention and lastly, the labors in Relanna are lower than it was ten years before. However, there could be alternative explanations that would possibly account for the high cost of cream.

To begin with, the author claims that the number of dairy farms in Relanna has increased by 25 percent. However, though the increase may seem significant at first glance, the author does not provide any information about the actual number. Perhaps, the number of dairy farms in Relanna was less than 5 ten years ago and a 25 percent increase would make it 6 which implies that the number of dairy farms has almost remained static over the past decade. It is fallacious to blatantly consider that this increase would have any substantial effect on the price of the cartoon. Moreover, the author asserts that the labor cost have reduced in the past ten years and again, the author does not provide any information about how much were the costs reduced to or by what amount. Perhaps, the decrease in the labor costs is so inconsequential that the reduction does not have any impact on the costs incurred for making the cream. If either of the alternate explanations has merit, the author's argument will be significantly weekend.

Moreover, the author does not explicitly mention if the local farmers are using advanced milking technology. It could very well be the case that the local farmers have not yet upgraded to the recent technology or they have been not using any technology to aid them in the first place. Since the farmers generally neither make hefty profits nor are they aware of better ROI(Return on Investment) by using advanced technology, they are generally disinclined towards promulgating the use of technology. And hence, though the author argues that newer milking technology reduces the dependency on manpower, perhaps, the farmers in Relanna have not yet adopted such technology which makes them incur the same costs as they did in the past. If this is the scenario in Relanna, the author's argument does not hold water.

Finally, the author spuriously assumes that there are no factors other than what is mentioned in the argument that affect the price of the cream. Perhaps the farmers have been made aware of the blights of the cattle recently and they have to invest to keep their salubrious. Or maybe there has been a significant increase in the price of the fodder over the past years which precludes them from making the cream at low costs. If either of the cases turns out to be true, they would significantly weaken the author's claim that the local farmers are increasing the price of the cream to gain profits.

To recapitulate, one can see that there are quite a few alternate explanations that would justify the high cost of the cream in the local food market and suggest contrary to the author's conclusion.

Votes

Essay Categories

GMAT/GRE Argument Task

Comments

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 980, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...e alternate explanations has merit, the authors argument will be significantly weekend....
^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 773, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...If this is the scenario in Relanna, the authors argument does not hold water. Finall...
^^^^^^^
Line 10, column 179, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...food market and suggest contrary to the authors conclusion.
^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, hence, however, if, lastly, may, moreover, so, well, to begin with, in the first place

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2703.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 553.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 4.88788426763 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84932490483 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.55338611585 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 235.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.424954792043 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 840.6 705.55239521 119% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 57.497369505 57.8364921388 99% => OK
Chars per sentence: 135.15 119.503703932 113% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.65 23.324526521 119% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.1 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.188226844745 0.218282227539 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0656955331237 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0807974932573 0.0701772020484 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.106554264542 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0791687460962 0.0628817314937 126% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 48.3550499002 109% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 12.197005988 103% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.38 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.29 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, hence, however, if, lastly, may, moreover, so, well, to begin with, in the first place

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments