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 given text talks about two real estate firms in a town - Adams Realty and Fitch Realty and argues that Adams is clearly superior. The argument hinges on several stated and unstated assumptions, which if discussed thoroughly, could break the argument apart.
The text describes that Adams has 40 real estate agents, while Fitch has 25, some of whom work part-time. It describes this in a manner which implies that a bigger workforce must imply a superior company. This assumption is completely unfounded. It is possible that agents of Adams have lesser workload than Fitch's agents. This point might seem in favour of Adams, however too less a workload is unproductive for the individual as well as the company. It is also possible that Fitch's agents are much more skilled than their counterparts in Adams and can get the job done with fewer people. Thus a bigger workforce in no way implies that the company is superior.
In the letter, the homeowner talks about the differences in his/her experience of selling a home with Adams and Fitch, about nine years apart. One cannot compare these experiences without bringing the multitude of other factors that would influence the real state market between a year back and ten years back. It is quite possible that when the homeowner listed his/her home with Fitch, the real estate market was down and houses weren't getting sold even after being listed for a year. On the other hand, when he/she listed another home with Adams, the real estate market was thriving and Adams had to put very little effort to sell the home. Thus a shorter time for selling the house, without considering other factors, does not point to Adams' superiority.
Moreover, there is no discussion about whether the two homes sold were similar or not. It is definitely possible that the home that sold after four months was in a damaged state and was located in a bad neighbourhood with high crime rates, while the home that sold quickly was in perfect condition and located in a great homely neighbourhood with hardly any crimes being committed. This dimension should also be factored in while comparing Adams to Fitch.
The homeowner also states that to get a good price, one should use Adams. This statement is supposedly based on the fact that Adams had twice the revenue last year as Fitch did. However it is quite possible that on making a successful sale, Adams takes a greater percentage of the revenue from the sale than Fitch. Thus the homeowner would get more money for themselves if they go with Fitch, assuming they can make the sale at a similar price.
To conclude, there are several unsubstantiated assumptions in the text like bigger workplace implying superiority, assuming that the real estate market was the same between one and ten years ago, etc. These assumtions should be carefully studied and more facts should be brought to the table before concluding if Adams really is superior to Fitch or not.
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 22 15
No. of Words: 506 350
No. of Characters: 2391 1500
No. of Different Words: 237 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.743 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.725 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.407 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 150 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 105 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.724 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.636 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.306 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.546 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.095 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 205, Rule ID: IF_IS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
... stated and unstated assumptions, which if discussed thoroughly, could break the a...
^^
Line 5, column 1, 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.
...y, could break the argument apart. The text describes that Adams has 40 real e...
^^^
Line 5, column 591, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...can get the job done with fewer people. Thus a bigger workforce in no way implies th...
^^^^
Line 9, column 432, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: weren't
... real estate market was down and houses werent getting sold even after being listed fo...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 645, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...ut very little effort to sell the home. Thus a shorter time for selling the house, w...
^^^^
Line 17, column 179, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...ice the revenue last year as Fitch did. However it is quite possible that on making a s...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 316, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...f the revenue from the sale than Fitch. Thus the homeowner would get more money for ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, moreover, really, so, thus, well, while, as well as, 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: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2465.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 502.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 4.91035856574 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7334296765 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.46457055807 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 243.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.48406374502 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 752.4 705.55239521 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.9089649552 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.173913043 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8260869565 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.86956521739 5.70786347227 68% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.311142751922 0.218282227539 143% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0964087554304 0.0743258471296 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.119914263729 0.0701772020484 171% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.17475877824 0.128457276422 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.103781560116 0.0628817314937 165% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.2 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.82 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.0 12.3882235529 48% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.