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 author claims that Sunnyside Corporation's profits will increase "dramatically" if all the buildings in the complex restrict the water flow from shower heads to one-third of the current flow. He believes so because he assumes with great confidence that doing the same in first three buildings has already resulted in lesser water usage. However, this argument is completely flawed since it lacks essential evidences and information and at the same is completely full of assumptions.
First, the author assumes that low water pressure is tantamount to less water usage. If the pressure is low, taps could be turned on for a longer period of time to complete the task at hand. This will result in more or less the same water usage. Hence, it cannot be claimed here with high confidence that this will result in lesser water usage.
Second, the residents of the complex may not necessarily be using shower to take bath. They can use bath tub or bucket and mug. There is no information present as to what percentage of people are using showers, so until this information is obtained, the argument essentially holds no value.
Third, the water, along with bathing, is also used for cooking, washing clothes,utensils and vegetables, in toilets and for various other inummerable reasons. The amount of water spent in bathing is actually a very small percentage compared to whole. Even if restricting the water flow in just the shower heads helped in decreasing the water usage amount while bathing, this usage is still constant at all other places. This will not produce a great impact in water reduction usage as a whole. Hence, the increase in profits cannot be "dramatic" in this case.
Thus, we cannot conclude that restricting the water supply from shower head will not have a great impact in increasing the profits. The author should wait for the water readings to come for the first three towers where this change has already been made, deliberate that why this happened and then make a systematic and effective decision based on facts and evidences.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 17 15
No. of Words: 346 350
No. of Characters: 1668 1500
No. of Different Words: 178 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.313 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.821 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.47 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 110 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 78 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 53 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 33 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.353 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.911 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.882 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.324 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.575 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.1 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 147, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...w, taps could be turned on for a longer period of time to complete the task at hand. This will...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 80, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , utensils
...s also used for cooking, washing clothes,utensils and vegetables, in toilets and for vari...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, hence, however, if, may, second, so, still, then, third, thus, while, as to, more or less
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 55.5748502994 68% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1741.0 2260.96107784 77% => OK
No of words: 345.0 441.139720559 78% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.04637681159 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.3097767484 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86103254899 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 181.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.524637681159 0.468620217663 112% => OK
syllable_count: 541.8 705.55239521 77% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.0729459077 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.411764706 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.2941176471 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.58823529412 5.70786347227 115% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.161531849404 0.218282227539 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0499702887865 0.0743258471296 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0635758402021 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0918798632559 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0650288301396 0.0628817314937 103% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.01 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.15 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.