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 author of the letter asserts a couple of conclusions that look persuasive at the first glance. However, when we delve deeper into the details, we can find some assumptions by author without presenting cogent evident. To make it more persuasive, the author should provide some additional information and may take some surveys. I will explain fallacious issue and propose some solutions to make it more cogent.
To begin, the author did not clarify the scope of each realities. It is possible that each of them work on different area of the city that have different conditions ranging from prices, facilities, social conditions and etc. Thus, all of them could change the conclusion of the author. Even if both realities work on the same area, it is possible that each of the are specialized on different kind of homes likes, apartments, studios, villa, house, or etc. Therefore, the author should provide additional information about the scope of each reality to remove any other possibilities.
Moreover, even if the scope of the both realities are the same, although comparing the abilities of the realities by their agents may look logic at initial view, it may face some holes and assumptions. It means, the author assumes all of agents have the same abilities and the number of agents could be a sign of a successful reality. While the perfomance of persons in different jobs are various and agents are not exception. Thus, it is possible that an state agency uses much less agents with well-experince and achieve excellent results. Thus, the writer of the letter should provide more information about agents of each realities such as experience, education and like that. By providing mentioned information, the reader could remove any additional possibilities from the statement.
Finally, the author compare the time of selling two different homes in different periods as a critera to judge the performance of the realities. He assumes both homes had same conditions, the economic situation was not change during 10 years but he did not mention any evidence ti prove that. As an counterexample, it is possible that one of the home was outside the city or the position of the home could be a reason for taking long time for selling the home. To solve this hole, the author should explain the condition of both homes and also he should provide additional information about economic situations in the time of selling each of them.
In conclusion, although the reasons that author provided to prove the Adam Reality is better than Fitch Reality look cogent at first glance, the letter lies on some assumptions and holes.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 438 350
No. of Characters: 2139 1500
No. of Different Words: 196 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.575 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.884 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.639 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 153 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.333 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.534 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.722 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.343 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.343 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.143 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 216, Rule ID: AND_ETC[1]
Message: Use simply 'etc.'.
Suggestion: etc.
...m prices, facilities, social conditions and etc. Thus, all of them could change the conc...
^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 360, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
... same area, it is possible that each of the are specialized on different kind of homes ...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 453, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...ot exception. Thus, it is possible that an state agency uses much less agents with...
^^
Line 3, column 479, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun agents is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...possible that an state agency uses much less agents with well-experince and achieve ...
^^^^
Line 4, column 296, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
... mention any evidence ti prove that. As an counterexample, it is possible that one...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, look, may, moreover, so, therefore, thus, well, while, in conclusion, kind of, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2193.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 438.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.00684931507 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.57476223824 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73942254788 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 204.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.465753424658 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 701.1 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 39.3868950287 57.8364921388 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.65 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.9 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.3 5.70786347227 110% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 0.0 6.88822355289 0% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 12.0 4.67664670659 257% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0506208602614 0.218282227539 23% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0170422375529 0.0743258471296 23% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0224454957982 0.0701772020484 32% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.036942315874 0.128457276422 29% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0340858365201 0.0628817314937 54% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.1 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.