The following appeared in a letter from a homeowner to a friend.
"Of the two leading real estate firms in our town — Adams Realty and Fitch Realty — Adams Realty is clearly superior. Adams has 40 real estate agents; in contrast, Fitch has 25, many of whom work only part-time. Moreover, Adams' revenue last year was twice as high as that of Fitch and included home sales that averaged $168,000, compared to Fitch's $144,000. Homes listed with Adams sell faster as well: ten years ago I listed my home with Fitch, and it took more than four months to sell; last year, when I sold another home, I listed it with Adams, and it took only one month. Thus, if you want to sell your home quickly and at a good price, you should use Adams Realty."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The writer of the passage has listed facts and comparisons about the two real estate firms - Adams Realty and Fitch Realty - and how Adams Realty is superior to Fitch Realty. On the surface, the assumption that Adams Realty is superior to Fitch Realty seems to be sufficient enough to bolster the position in the argument. Any good orator would use similar speech to convince his friend. However, several questions arise that could undermine the assumptions in this passage.
The first question that surrounds Adams sells faster as compared to Fitch. Here, the assertion is based on, comparison between two firms, not in present but are compared after ten years. The realty market ten years ago has not been defined. Maybe ten years ago, due to housing market bubble, it was hard for Fitch to sell the house quicker, as compared to Adams in present. Nonetheless, the author misses to confirm the rate at which Fitch and Adams sold the house, if they could be compared using inflation.
Secondly, it is stated that Adams Realty has greater revenue than Fitch, and helps to get better average selling price than Fitch. Although, there can be a case, that Adams Realty is operating in a better neighborhood, where the people living are opulent and the houses that are existing are costlier than the area in which Fitch operates. Another instance, why Adams Realty has better averaged home sales as compared to Fitch: maybe, Adams Realty could sell only 3 houses worth, $206,000, $168,000 and $100,000 which averaged to $168,000. However, Fitch sold only two houses but with lesser spread in sales e.g. $140,000 and $148,000. If either of the alternate explanations have merit, the author's argument will be significantly weakened. As, Fitch may help to get better price and on the other hand, in case of Adams, you may have a possibility to have a very high price or very low price.
Moreover, Can you compare two homes, when you are selling them at a difference of ten years? There would certainly be a lot of changes in amenities, locality, city, and economy, which in turn will positive or negative effect when you are selling your house. Also, having more number of agents do not mean to be superior but It becomes a burden. When there are less number of buyers and sellers are less too then the operating costs for Adams will increase, which in turn will put pressure on employees to sell the houses to get revenue. Due to which agents may sell those houses at whatever price they can, without doing due deliberation. Thus, Fitch is a smarter one to have a small number of agents and most of whom are on part time basis, as you don't require to sell houses for whole day. You can't compare apples to oranges and clearly same is the case with houses too.
To recapitulate, one can see that there are quite a few alternate explanations that would justify the home sales of Fitch which is averaged lower than Adams.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 508 350
No. of Characters: 2334 1500
No. of Different Words: 241 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.748 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.594 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.247 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 57 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 26 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.087 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.059 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.565 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.304 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.512 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.147 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 54, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[3]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...stion that surrounds Adams sells faster as compared to Fitch. Here, the assertion ...
^^
Line 4, column 199, Rule ID: MASS_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error - use third-person verb forms for singular and mass nouns: 'markets'.
Suggestion: markets
...re compared after ten years. The realty market ten years ago has not been defined. May...
^^^^^^
Line 4, column 399, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'misses confirming'.
Suggestion: misses confirming
...ams in present. Nonetheless, the author misses to confirm the rate at which Fitch and Adams sold ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 681, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... alternate explanations have merit, the authors argument will be significantly weakened...
^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 677, Rule ID: SMALL_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, use 'a few', or use 'some'
Suggestion: a few; some
...n. Thus, Fitch is a smarter one to have a small number of agents and most of whom are on part tim...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 726, Rule ID: EN_COMPOUNDS
Message: This word is normally spelled with hyphen.
Suggestion: part-time
...umber of agents and most of whom are on part time basis, as you dont require to sell hous...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 750, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
... of whom are on part time basis, as you dont require to sell houses for whole day. Y...
^^^^
Line 8, column 763, Rule ID: ALLOW_TO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'selling'? Or maybe you should add a pronoun? In active voice, 'require' + 'to' takes an object, usually a pronoun.
Suggestion: selling
...on part time basis, as you dont require to sell houses for whole day. You cant compare ...
^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 797, Rule ID: CANT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'can't' or 'cannot'?
Suggestion: can't; cannot
...quire to sell houses for whole day. You cant compare apples to oranges and clearly s...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, e.g., first, however, if, may, moreover, nonetheless, second, secondly, so, then, thus, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2405.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 507.0 441.139720559 115% => OK
Chars per words: 4.74358974359 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74517233601 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.33826746155 2.78398813304 84% => OK
Unique words: 252.0 204.123752495 123% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.497041420118 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 742.5 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.0479136933 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.565217391 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0434782609 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.04347826087 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 9.0 5.25449101796 171% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.303167261233 0.218282227539 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0924759496736 0.0743258471296 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.113467394692 0.0701772020484 162% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.178792826133 0.128457276422 139% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.138528217958 0.0628817314937 220% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.21 12.5979740519 81% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.9 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.