The following appeared in a memo from the president of Bower Builders, a company that constructs new homes.
"A nationwide survey reveals that the two most-desired home features are a large family room and a large, well-appointed kitchen. A number of homes in our area built by our competitor Domus Construction have such features and have sold much faster and at significantly higher prices than the national average. To boost sales and profits, we should increase the size of the family rooms and kitchens in all the homes we build and should make state-of-the-art kitchens a standard feature. Moreover, our larger family rooms and kitchens can come at the expense of the dining room, since many of our recent buyers say they do not need a separate dining room for family meals."
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 proposes increasing the size of the family rooms and kitchens in all homes to make more profit. He or she offers an interesting argument, but it suffers from some logical flaws and gaps in evidence. While the connections suggested are reasonable, there are many other possible scenarios that should discourage the company from making commodious family rooms and kitchens.
To begin with, consider the nationwide surveys assessing most-desired home feature preferences. The author assumes that the stated preference for large family room and a large, well-appointed kitchen will lead to more profit if the company builds homes that satisfy these features. Yet it needs more verification. First of all, nationwide preferences can differ from the company's area's preferences. The residents in company's area might prefer small family room since high proposition of them are single. Secondly, the author offers no information about when does the survey conducted. As we all know, trend changes fast. If survey conducted long before, it's result might be anachronistic. Thus we must ask do survey's results really reveals the area's current preferences? Without answering the question, we cannot determine whether building extensive family room and spacious, well-appointed kitchen merits the company.
Let us assume, though, that the surveys indicate real interest. We are then prompted to ask whether the real interests will lead actual behaviors. People's actions do not always correspond to their preferences. Even though they prefers roomy family room and broad, sophisticated kitchen they may not have enough money to buy. Or they may not consider buying new house since they may already had one or moved house recently. Therefore we can not conclude that the company should build homes that are meeting the dweller's desires.
Thirdly, the author mentions Domus Construction's high performances was due to their homes that provides the resident's desires. Yet he or she needs more verifications. There are many factors which are responsible for high prices. The areas might have well-established educational institutes which induce higher price. The effective road-systems or clean forests near by might cause costly price. There are no reasons to believe that features satisfying the villager's inclination was the only reason that leads the company's achievements.
Finally, the author unfairly asserts that larger family rooms and kitchens can come at the expense of the dining room. He or she provides no data about the cost needed to make larger family rooms and kitchens and how much money saved by removing the dining room. Commodious family rooms and kitchens may cost much more higher than the saved by discarding dining room. Therefore without comparison of the cost and saved money, we cannot conclude whether resident's desires can come at the expense of the dining room.
A close examination of all the assumptions made in the author's proposal reveals that the company does not have enough justification to make larger family room and kitchen. Although the proposal certainly points out a possible course of action, the company should not act until they have more information.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 31 15
No. of Words: 501 350
No. of Characters: 2651 1500
No. of Different Words: 256 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.731 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.291 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.696 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 204 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 141 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.161 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.32 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.516 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.263 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.479 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.141 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 690, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...ore, its result might be anachronistic. Thus we must ask do surveys results really r...
^^^^
Line 5, column 228, Rule ID: NON3PRS_VERB[2]
Message: The pronoun 'they' must be used with a non-third-person form of a verb: 'prefer'
Suggestion: prefer
... to their preferences. Even though they prefers roomy family room and broad, sophistica...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 424, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
...lready had one or moved house recently. Therefore we can not conclude that the company sh...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 362, Rule ID: NEAR_BY[1]
Message: Did you mean 'nearby'?
Suggestion: nearby
...effective road-systems or clean forests near by might cause costly price. There are no ...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 457, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'villagers'' or 'villager's'?
Suggestion: villagers'; villager's
...to believe that features satisfying the villagers inclination was the only reason that le...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 315, Rule ID: MOST_COMPARATIVE[2]
Message: Use only 'higher' (without 'more') when you use the comparative.
Suggestion: higher
...family rooms and kitchens may cost much more higher than the saved by discarding dining roo...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 369, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
...an the saved by discarding dining room. Therefore without comparison of the cost and save...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 56, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...tion of all the assumptions made in the authors proposal reveals that the company does ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, if, may, really, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, well, while, first of all, to begin with
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: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 21.0 11.1786427146 188% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2705.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 501.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.39920159681 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73107062784 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75308911648 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 258.0 204.123752495 126% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.51497005988 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 832.5 705.55239521 118% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 31.0 19.7664670659 157% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 39.2006498279 57.8364921388 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 87.2580645161 119.503703932 73% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.1612903226 23.324526521 69% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.48387096774 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 14.0 4.67664670659 299% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.277285655113 0.218282227539 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.065800256904 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0674791988003 0.0701772020484 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.134049471055 0.128457276422 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0723406419401 0.0628817314937 115% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 46.78 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.74 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.62 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 133.0 98.500998004 135% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.