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 argument engages in analyzing superiority of two real estate firm—Adams Realty and Fitch Realty. The author presents some factual data—number of agents, average home sales price and revenue of two firms—to support his conclusion. The author then concluded that if anyone wants to sell home quickly and at a reasonable price, he/she should use Adams Realty. However, looking closely at the evidences and the assumptions the author made, it would be ill-conceived to reach the conclusion as stated in the argument.
To begin with, the author relies his assumption on the fact that Adams Realty has more agents and accordingly is more efficient than Fitch Realty. However, it is possible that agents of Fitch Realty are more capable and prudent than the agents of Adams. So, if it were the case, even if they work part-time for Fitch they can do their job better than agents of Adams. Also, it is possible that since the agents of Fitch are working part-time, they might have been working for the another company which might have allowed them to understand real estate market more deeply making them more competent in their field.
In the second place, another serious flawed assumption the author made in this argument is that more revenue and higher average home sales price signifies the superiority of Adams Realty. The author does not provide enough information to compare revenues of both firms. Amount of transaction is important to analyze revenues of both firms; if Adams transactions last year were higher as compared to Fitch then it is normal that their revenue is also higher than that of Fitch. So, this information does not necessarily signify that the Adams Realty did better than Fitch. Similarly, the author assumes that higher average sales price of Adams firm ensure higher price for every homes. It is likely that a person who listed his home to Fitch get higher price than one who listed to Adams; because lower average does not necessarily mean every item has low value.
Finally, in the last part of the argument, the author provides his experience that took place ten years ago. The author is assuming that the Fitch firm is in the same state as ten years ago. The Fitch firm might have made a lot of changes in its management, policies and its marketing strategies. It might be the case that they have implemented some attractive schemes for their customers in order to challenge its rival firm Adams. So, there is still a probability that a person who listed his home with Fitch gets even more reasonable price than those who listed with Adams. Moreover, the author does not provide information about the outer economic environment at the time he sold his home. Perhaps, the economy was in recession at that time or the government tightened it rules and regulations for the real estate company and which might have resulted in delay. Thus, without answering these questions, it would be unwise to reach the conclusion as stated in the argument.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK. maybe Adams charges more service fees.
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 508 350
No. of Characters: 2417 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.748 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.758 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.354 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 159 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 101 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 63 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.091 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.967 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.636 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.348 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.509 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.148 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 235, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...of two firms—to support his conclusion. The author then concluded that if anyone wa...
^^^
Line 3, column 384, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[3]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...dams transactions last year were higher as compared to Fitch then it is normal tha...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, finally, however, if, look, moreover, second, similarly, so, still, then, thus, to begin with, in the second place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 50.0 28.8173652695 174% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2480.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 504.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 4.92063492063 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73813722054 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.4662115778 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 222.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.440476190476 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 790.2 705.55239521 112% => 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: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.7589162785 57.8364921388 70% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.727272727 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.9090909091 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.04545454545 5.70786347227 106% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => 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: 0.202711997284 0.218282227539 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0744822881714 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0966906773996 0.0701772020484 138% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.140195441309 0.128457276422 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0483465698207 0.0628817314937 77% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.55 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.