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.
An author of the letter to the editor of a Relannian newspaper claims that the dairy farmers of Relanna have dramatically increased the price of dairy products, blaming them that they are inflating the prices in the Relannian milk market. Author asserts that despite the implementing the innovative technologies that have significantly increased the efficiency of the milking process and lowering the labor costs, dairy farmers increase the prices just for the sake of profit.
However, arguments presented are not sufficient for such inference, as there other contributing components that may influence pricing.
Firstly, the production of milk is a very complex process that have many variables. For example, milk production company may rely on local corps, which annually harvested in the Rellanian area, as a food supply for the cattle. But there might be the case, that for the past two years harvest was poor. And, therefore, milk farmers had to buy more expensive supplies to feed the cows in the farther areas with inevitably higher shipping prices. All these factors have a direct influence on price for the milk products for the retail customers.
Secondly, the aforementioned technologies that replaced the majority of human labor on the diary farm and also have made the milk processing more efficient is also at the milk company’s expense. The costs for this technical improvement that company paid, possibly, was landed by a bank and now farmers have to make monthly payments as a part of the payment plan. Consequently, in order to stay on market and be able to continue their business and cover their expenditures, farmers had to increase the prices on cream.
As a matter of fact, an important factor for the milk production is a cow’s reproduction. Milk production is only possible when a female cow becomes a mother. But information about the calf population rates has been failed to provide. It is possible that there was a significant decline in cow’s reproduction which has led to decrease in milk production, and, as a result, caused impact on cream pricing.
According to the facts listed above, it is obvious that arguments listed in the letter to the editor of a Relannian newspaper are not sufficient to make such assertion, as there more contributing factors may influence the milk product prices, such as cow’s food supply, cattle reproduction rate, or high costs of technological upgrade.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 396 350
No. of Characters: 1977 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.461 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.992 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.775 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 141 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.75 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.183 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.33 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.581 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.064 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 323, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...s harvest was poor. And, therefore, milk farmers had to buy more expensive suppli...
^^
Line 4, column 545, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...milk products for the retail customers. Secondly, the aforementioned technologie...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, therefore, for example, such as, as a matter of fact, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 12.9520958084 31% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2046.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 396.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.16666666667 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46091344257 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86596915653 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.517676767677 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 631.8 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.7303707906 57.8364921388 124% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.875 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.75 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.125 5.70786347227 160% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.180531945549 0.218282227539 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0571206926784 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0611650949432 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0926657744149 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0713369960391 0.0628817314937 113% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.05 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 106.0 98.500998004 108% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.