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 author claims that all twelve buildings in the Sunnyside Towers complex should change their showerheads in order to restrict water flow and increase profits. However, there are several assumptions that need supports.
First, the author states that the change will definitely result in a considerable savings for the corporation. The assumption here is that the residents use water for the same amount of time as before. However, it might be possible that people use water for longer time due to the reduced water flow. What's worse is that because the water flow is restricted, people may be more careless about the usage. For example, they could forget to shutdown the water after they wash their hands more often. Therefore, the corporation needs to pay even more for water after the change.
The letter also mentions that there are only a few complaints about the adjustment. The author seems to assume that whenever a resident doesn't like modification, he will definitely complain about it. Yet, there is a possibility that some people would directly go find a new apartment instead of complaining with the corporation. Since the process of reporting a problem to the corporation could be quite demanding and most residents don't want to spend so much time on doing those boring things after a day of work, it is likely that the number of complaints the corporation received can't represent the actual number of residents who don't agree with the adjustment.
The author suggests that in order to increase profits, the modification should be applied to all twelve buildings in the Sunnyside Towers complex. There is an assumption that residents of all the other nine buildings would have almost the same reaction as those of the first three buildings. Nevertheless, it is possible that the concerns of residents vary among the twelve buildings. For example, people who live in one of the buildings could have more money and pay more attention to the quality of life. As a result, when they found that the water pressure becomes lower, they decided to find a new house directly, making the profits of the corporation decreases.
The owner of Sunnyside Towers claims that they should restrict the water flow of all twelve buildings to make more money. However, the argument relies on several critical but unproven assumptions that the author needs to address.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 395 350
No. of Characters: 1934 1500
No. of Different Words: 178 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.458 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.896 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.549 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 136 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 92 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 69 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.789 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.339 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.321 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.538 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.083 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 302, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: What's
...ger time due to the reduced water flow. Whats worse is that because the water flow is...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 436, Rule ID: GOT_SHUTDOWN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'to shut down'?
Suggestion: to shut down
...e usage. For example, they could forget to shutdown the water after they wash their hands m...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 137, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...eems to assume that whenever a resident doesnt like modification, he will definitely c...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 434, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...d be quite demanding and most residents dont want to spend so much time on doing tho...
^^^^
Line 5, column 584, Rule ID: CANT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'can't' or 'cannot'?
Suggestion: can't; cannot
... of complaints the corporation received cant represent the actual number of resident...
^^^^
Line 5, column 634, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...sent the actual number of residents who dont agree with the adjustment. The autho...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, nevertheless, so, therefore, for example, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1982.0 2260.96107784 88% => OK
No of words: 392.0 441.139720559 89% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.05612244898 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44960558625 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.62635201492 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 185.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.47193877551 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 607.5 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.7514384115 57.8364921388 98% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.315789474 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.6315789474 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.68421052632 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.210047078476 0.218282227539 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0676540910942 0.0743258471296 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0945433630046 0.0701772020484 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.149010197874 0.128457276422 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0903860344239 0.0628817314937 144% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.07 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.49 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 71.0 98.500998004 72% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.