The following appeared in a letter from the owner of the Sunnyside Towers apartment complex to its manager.
"One month ago, 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. I predict that modifying showerheads to restrict water flow throughout all twelve buildings in the Sunnyside Towers complex will increase our profits even more dramatically."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
The owner argues that by reducing the water flow in all twelve buildings, the company would be able to improve the profitability. It is based on the premises that reduction in water flow to one-third in three buildings had not caused large number of complaints from the residents, therefore, it would help the company to save costs on water charges. The argument seems true at first sight, however, on deeper analysis it becomes clear that certain relevant aspects have not been taken into account, leading to a number of questions and logical flaws.
First such question is that whether water expense hold significant contribution to the overall profits of the company. The owner has not answered if the charges for the water are variable or fixed since it would or would not impact the profits. Further, it may be the case that residents of these buildings took the ownership of homes on the condition that all utilities charges such as water and electricity would be fixed irrespective of the usage which the owner of the building had negotiated the same with the authorities. For example, the Reality Association of India has offered homes from the period 2004 to 2009 with attractive schemes which also included fixed charges for water usage because the authorities offered incentives to these realtors in order to boost demand for the houses. Therefore, in order to overcome this flaw, the owner should answer that water charges are variable and they contribute significantly to the overall profits of the company.
Secondly, the question is related to sampling assumption that one month is sufficient to estimate the same response for every other home owners in these buildings. In most cases whether be it finance or economics or accounting, the time period of one month is considered as insufficient data to extrapolate the future earnings of the company. For example, the study conducted by financial associates of Bank of America in 2016 concluded that financial results for past one month that have been declared by companies, though cheered the equities, but highly unreliable since any estimates of financial nature would need data for at least one year that cover all cycles of the economy; this one month has showed only cycle of growth which was incomplete understanding of the economy. Therefore, in order to strengthen the argument, the owner must answer that the past one month has covered majority of the residents and it covered all possible ups and downs that may occur in a year.
Finally, the question is related to non-availability of water readings. The owner has assumed that just by reducing the water flow, it would save him costs on water usage despite not tallying the water readings. Since, it may be the case that residents of these buildings have actually increased their usage in order to make up to the reduced pressure of water. Or their usage may still be the same and they keep the tap running for more time to balance the reduction in water pressure and their usage. For example, the research conducted by DLF, a realtor in India, in 2010 concluded that reducing anything, be it water or electricity, has not saved amounts for water or electricity charges but has resulted in large number of court filings which forced the company to incur huge expenditure on these legal proceedings. Therefore, the owner should demonstrate that water readings showed reduced usage.
While concluding, after close examination of the argument presented, it is apparent that the argument as it stands now is considerably flawed due to its reliance of certain unanswered questions. The recommendations in the above paragraphs show how this argument can be strengthened and made more logically sound in order to evaluate the viability of the proposed measure.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 627 350
No. of Characters: 3101 1500
No. of Different Words: 273 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.004 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.946 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.64 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 204 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 176 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 117 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 31.35 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.947 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.85 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.342 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.562 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 19, column 213, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Since” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...espite not tallying the water readings. Since, it may be the case that residents of t...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, third, while, at least, for example, such as, in most cases
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 45.0 28.8173652695 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 89.0 55.5748502994 160% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3189.0 2260.96107784 141% => OK
No of words: 627.0 441.139720559 142% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.08612440191 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.00399520894 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72639679266 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 283.0 204.123752495 139% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.451355661882 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 1013.4 705.55239521 144% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 31.0 22.8473053892 136% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 83.8184198133 57.8364921388 145% => OK
Chars per sentence: 159.45 119.503703932 133% => OK
Words per sentence: 31.35 23.324526521 134% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.0 5.70786347227 140% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.125472220619 0.218282227539 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0472186440423 0.0743258471296 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.030825530699 0.0701772020484 44% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.073002367279 0.128457276422 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0363144498745 0.0628817314937 58% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.2 14.3799401198 127% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.01 48.3550499002 83% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 12.197005988 126% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.83 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.13 8.32208582834 110% => OK
difficult_words: 157.0 98.500998004 159% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.4 11.1389221557 129% => 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.