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.
In this letter, the homeowner argues that Adams Realty is superior to Fitch based on its greater number of real estate agents, higher revenue in the previous year, greater average prices for houses sold, and his personal experience with both realties. Based on these argumnets, the homeowner recommends that their friend use Adams Realty if they want to sell their house quickly and at a good price. However, this argument is rife with assumptions that the friend ought to clarify before deciding that Adams Realty is the better option.
Firstly, the homeowner argues that Adams is better because it has 40 real estate agents to Fitch's 25, and many of Fitch's agents work part time. However, the number of agents does not speak to their quality, and no mention is made of how many of Adam's agents work part-time or whether full-time real estate agents are any better at selling houses than the part time ones. It is completely possible, based on the information provided, that all of Adams' agents work part time, or Adams employs so many agents because they need more than one agent because they are generally less competent. If this is the case, the argument is clearly weakened.
Then, the homeowner points to higher revenue and a greater average price for houses sold by Adams in the last year. While data from last year is fairly recent, this argument relies on the assumption that there were no major changes in the business management and employee force or no recent newsworthy scandals or accolades associated with either business. Depending on the nature of these factors, if any exist, the data described by the homeowner may not be applicable any more. Additionally, Adam's higher revenue may come from a higher commission charged by its real estate agents, rather than being indicative of a greater sales rate, and the greater average price may come from Adam's having some sort of minimum price for the houses they list. The homeowner assumes none of these are the case, but any of these considerations would weaken the homeowner's argument.
Finally, the homeowner argues for Adams' superiority from personal anecdote, claiming that when he listed a house 10 years ago on Fitch it took 4 months to sell but when he listed a house on Adams last year, it only took 1 month. To be convinced by this anecdote alone, the friend would have to make several assumptions. Firstly, was the housing market in the same position a year and 10 years ago? Are Adams and Fitch from the point of sale in the same position as they are today? If 10 years ago there was a housing crash that caused the increased sale time, the argument is clearly weakened. However, if Fitch was a much bigger, more renowned company 10 years ago and it is struggling today, then the argument for Fitch's current inferiority is supported. In this case, we are simply not given enough information to fairly evaluate this anecdote. Additionally, it is unknown whether the homeowners houses were the same kind or the same price, and whether they were sold under or below market value. Perhaps Adams boosts sales by listing houses below market value, or the homeowner was selling a much more expensive house 10 years ago. These situations would clearly weaken the efficacy of his anecdote.
Thus, before the friend decides whether to use Adams or Fitch, or if they even want to sell their house, they need to get these details from their friend and do some additional research on the companies' current positions and reviews from other people who have used the realties. The homeowner's case, while potentially compelling based on how the unstated assumptions are clarified, may not even be representative of the general house prices and speed of sale offered by each Realty. Additionally, various other factors like details about the friend's house, the realties's policies, and the commission rates are also crucial for the the friend to consider before making any decision.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 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: 669 350
No. of Characters: 3207 1500
No. of Different Words: 267 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.086 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.794 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.387 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 228 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 152 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.76 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.988 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.72 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.504 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.095 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 134, Rule ID: EN_COMPOUNDS
Message: This word is normally spelled with hyphen.
Suggestion: part-time
...tchs 25, and many of Fitchs agents work part time. However, the number of agents does not...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 356, Rule ID: EN_COMPOUNDS
Message: This word is normally spelled with hyphen.
Suggestion: part-time
...e any better at selling houses than the part time ones. It is completely possible, based ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 464, Rule ID: EN_COMPOUNDS
Message: This word is normally spelled with hyphen.
Suggestion: part-time
...provided, that all of Adams agents work part time, or Adams employs so many agents becaus...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 849, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'homeowners'' or 'homeowner's'?
Suggestion: homeowners'; homeowner's
...f these considerations would weaken the homeowners argument. Finally, the homeowner arg...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 628, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...e commission rates are also crucial for the the friend to consider before making any de...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 628, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...e commission rates are also crucial for the the friend to consider before making any de...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, so, then, thus, while, sort of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 26.0 11.1786427146 233% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 48.0 28.8173652695 167% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3281.0 2260.96107784 145% => OK
No of words: 669.0 441.139720559 152% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.9043348281 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.08576781939 4.56307096286 111% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.44901172307 2.78398813304 88% => OK
Unique words: 279.0 204.123752495 137% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.417040358744 0.468620217663 89% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1034.1 705.55239521 147% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 10.0 1.67365269461 597% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 65.3610771025 57.8364921388 113% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.24 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.76 23.324526521 115% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.36 5.70786347227 59% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.297679963213 0.218282227539 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0889727842436 0.0743258471296 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0901063111348 0.0701772020484 128% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.180879760936 0.128457276422 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0855046405398 0.0628817314937 136% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.44 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.99 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 130.0 98.500998004 132% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.5 12.3882235529 101% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.