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 replacement of all the showerheads of every building in the Sunnyside Towers complex to water-economizing showerheads will drastically increase the profits. To support this argument, the author claims that the decreased cost of water will lead to significant increase in profit. Although this argument may seem plausible at first, several questions need to be answered beforehand to validate the statement.
To begin with, the author is supposing that significant amount of water use has been economized by the alteration of the showerheads in three buildings without any evidence. As mentioned in the letter, question on the actual difference of water usage before and after the replacement must be clarified first to evaluate the supposition. If the answer shows abated water usage, the author’s claim will be convincing. On the other hand, if the answer is that there was actually no difference due to the change or even increase of water usage, the claim loses its validity.
Second, even though the answer to the first question showed the decrease in water usage, cost of the alteration must be determined to examine the profit. The author assumes that there will be profit increase only with the decrease of consumption without calculating the cost spent. Considering significant amount of time, if reduction of consumption cost will be more than the cost spent to change the showerheads, the author’s claim will be persuasive. However, if the cost of renewal is higher that dropped consumption cost, it can be detrimental to the business.
Finally, the author presumes that a few complaints raised will not affect the profit, but this cannot be decided until the question is answered: how assertive were the complaints? Assuming that the nuance of complaints wasn’t harsh, we can think that the living situation of tenant won’t change due to this event. On the contrary, if the complaints have implied that this change might have affected their decision to move out from the complex, this event could abate the rent income.
In conclusion, the author’s argument is based on the aforementioned assumptions. Therefore, to bolster the argument, the author needs to respond to the following questions: are there actual changes in water consumption?, does the decreased amount of consumption exceeds the cost of replacement?, and how strong were the complaints?
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 384 350
No. of Characters: 1958 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.427 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.099 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.799 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.51 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.36 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.615 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.129 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 28, Rule ID: NON_ACTION_CONTINUOUS[3]
Message: The verb suppose is usually not used with a continuous form, use the simple form instead. Suggestion: 'supposes'
Suggestion: supposes
...atement. To begin with, the author is supposing that significant amount of water use ha...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 28, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...atement. To begin with, the author is supposing that significant amount of water use ha...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, therefore, in conclusion, on the contrary, to begin with, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2026.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 382.0 441.139720559 87% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.30366492147 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.42095241839 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9355297735 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 191.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 612.0 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.5354782875 57.8364921388 70% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.625 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.875 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.25 5.70786347227 145% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.122199611357 0.218282227539 56% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0464579889004 0.0743258471296 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0724515750855 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0769247641015 0.128457276422 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0623367233518 0.0628817314937 99% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.76 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.7 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 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.