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 paragraph above is a letter that compares two real estate firms in a town. the firms are named Adams Realty and Fitch Realty. It seems that the author of the paragraph seems to side with Adams reality due to his latest experience with them. It states that author was able to sell a house last year with the help of Adams Realty in a month. On the contrary, he exclaims that Fitch Realty are not up to the mark since they took up to four months to help the author sell a house. The author thus concludes that Adams Realty are a better bet than Fitch Realty. The above argument on an initial basis seems to provide categorical evidences to support the author claims. But on scrutiny, there are a few loopholes that if remain unanswered would cast a doubt on the conclusion that the author draws out of the above argument.
Firstly, the author compares the employee strength of both the real estate firms by stating that Adams Realty have more employees than Fitch Realty. This helps the author draw the initial conclusion that Adams Realty is superior. The comparison of the employee strength does not pose an ideal factor to compare the superiority of a firm. It can also be possible that Fitch Realty work better at a lesser employee strength than Adams Realty. It can be highly possible that Fitch Realty run an efficient office where they do not need to resort to over-staffing and at the same time get the job done.
Secondly, the author compares the revenue of both the firms stating that Adam Realty had a revenue, twice as high as that of Fitch Realty. This way the author implicitly puts forward his point that Adams Realty performed better financially last year which is why they should be picked over Fitch realty. The question that arises here is, why did the author compare the revenue of only the last year, why not the past five or ten years. Comparing an year's revenue, proves to be too short of a sample set to base a conclusion upon. Comparing the revenue of both the firms over an extended period could give up more compelling trends of the performance of both the firms. The last year could prove to be an anomaly and it could be the case that Fitch Realty perform well on an extended period as compared to Adams Realty in terms of revenue,
Additionally, the author compares his experience with both Adams Realty and Fitch Realty and sides with Adams Realty by stating that Adams Realty helped the author sell his house quicker and at a higher price than Fitch Realty. The main distinguishing factor that brings down this comparison is the time period over which this comparison has been made. The house sold with the help of Fitch Realty was ten years ago while the one sold with the help of Adams Realty was a year ago. There might be a possibility that the housing sector was not doing well ten years ago, and this meant that Fitch Realty had trouble selling the house quickly. This comparison seems viable only if the performance of both the real estate firms occur in the same time period.
The prompt provided above compares the performance of two real estate firms based on arguments that have voids in it. The evidences are not categorical and hence it weakens the conclusion that the author draws based on the evidences and arguments stated above.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 586 350
No. of Characters: 2655 1500
No. of Different Words: 218 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.92 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.531 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.234 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 166 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 89 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 63 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.44 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.693 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.44 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.361 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.533 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.15 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 80, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: The
...mpares two real estate firms in a town. the firms are named Adams Realty and Fitch ...
^^^
Line 5, column 447, 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
...t the past five or ten years. Comparing an years revenue, proves to be too short o...
^^
Line 5, column 450, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
...he past five or ten years. Comparing an years revenue, proves to be too short of a sa...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 105, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...state firms based on arguments that have voids in it. The evidences are not categ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, second, secondly, so, thus, well, while, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 25.0 13.6137724551 184% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2708.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 586.0 441.139720559 133% => OK
Chars per words: 4.62116040956 5.12650576532 90% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.92010537223 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.27679587619 2.78398813304 82% => OK
Unique words: 224.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.382252559727 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 830.7 705.55239521 118% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.9348044318 57.8364921388 107% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.32 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.44 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.76 5.70786347227 66% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.339615390115 0.218282227539 156% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.123102559631 0.0743258471296 166% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.104165086762 0.0701772020484 148% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.214124206942 0.128457276422 167% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.080275541497 0.0628817314937 128% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 65.05 48.3550499002 135% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.81 12.5979740519 78% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 6.96 8.32208582834 84% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.