The following appeared in a letter from the owner of the Sunnyside Towers apartment complex to its manager.
“Last week, all the showerheads in the first three buildings of the Sunnyside Towers complex were modified to restrict maximum water flow to one-third of what it used to be. Although actual readings of water usage before and after the adjustment are not yet available, the change will obviously result in a considerable savings for Sunnyside Corporation, since the corporation must pay for water each month. Except for a few complaints about low water pressure, no problems with showers have been reported since the adjustment. Clearly, modifying showerheads to restrict water flow throughout all twelve buildings in the Sunnyside Towers complex will increase our profits further.”
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 presented argument includes several unwarranted assumptions that make its predictions unconvincing. The full absence of data regarding the actual water using makes it impossible to compare levels of water consumption. Even had the argument provided such kind of information it can hardly be extrapolated for prediction of future usage.
The next argument flaw is that the prediction for the whole apartment complex consisting of twelve buildings is carried out on observations after only three of them. So we know nothing about buildings, for example, about their sizes, because they can be larger or smaller which can influence the total amount of water consumed.
It is mentioned that the company must pay for water each month, but modifying showerheads was done only one week ago. Consequently, Sunnyside Corporation should wait at least for a month to say something confidently about final water usage.
Furthermore, the owner tries to compare the flow of water and its total volume, but these variables have different dimensions. Eventually, the assumption has an obvious physical mistake. Flow can be expressed in terms of volume divided by square and time. So even the decreased flow can give the same amount of consumed water, and the payment is made for volume, not for flow. For example, people complaining about low water pressure now can take shower for a longer time what again leads to the previous volume of consumed water.
Summarizing the above, it was presented that the Sunnyside Corporation makes several unwarranted assumptions. So it fails to make a convincing case that carried out modifications of showerheads will increase the further company's profits. To be more confident in predictions, it is necessary to evaluate discussed flaws.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 15 15
No. of Words: 280 350
No. of Characters: 1453 1500
No. of Different Words: 168 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.091 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.189 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.847 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 99 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 82 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.57 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.319 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.592 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.073 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...g confidently about final water usage. Furthermore, the owner tries to compare ...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, furthermore, if, regarding, so, at least, for example, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 33.0 55.5748502994 59% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1496.0 2260.96107784 66% => OK
No of words: 280.0 441.139720559 63% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.34285714286 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.09062348924 4.56307096286 90% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.92595702118 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 172.0 204.123752495 84% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.614285714286 0.468620217663 131% => OK
syllable_count: 471.6 705.55239521 67% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 29.51308561 57.8364921388 51% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 99.7333333333 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.6666666667 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.4 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
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: 0.142524091256 0.218282227539 65% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0468807813089 0.0743258471296 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0386756668981 0.0701772020484 55% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0762148342047 0.128457276422 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0313961690521 0.0628817314937 50% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.69 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.87 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.