The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of a food distribution company with food storage warehouses in several cities.
"Recently, we signed a contract with the Fly-Away Pest Control Company to provide pest control services at our fast-food warehouse in Palm City, but last month we discovered that over $20,000 worth of food there had been destroyed by pest damage. Meanwhile, the Buzzoff Pest Control Company, which we have used for many years, continued to service our warehouse in Wintervale, and last month only $10,000 worth of the food stored there had been destroyed by pest damage. Even though the price charged by Fly-Away is considerably lower, our best means of saving money is to return to Buzzoff for all our pest control services."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The vice president stated the argument that under Fly-away pest control service last month, the loss in the warehouse in Palm city due to pest was over $20000; whereas under the Buzzoff Pest control company, the loss in the warehouse in Wintervale was only $10000. The vice president thus suggested that to better control the cost, the food company should return back to use Buzzoff's service. However, this memo is untenable since there are number of questions regarding to the suggestion require further analysis.
First, it is questionable that the data from last month can show all the information that Fly-away company had more loss than Buzzoff company. To better evaluate the argument, we need to examine whether in other months, the B-company can still outperform the F-company. It is totally possible that last month was the only month that B-company reduced the pest damage effectively, whereas in other months, B-company all have loss of food that is greater than F-company. Another possibility is that maybe last month the food storage under Fly-away is much larger than the amount of storage under Buzzoff so if the vice president calculates the proportion of loss to the total storage, Fly-away may show a better performance than Buzz-off company. However, if it is other way around, then the argument of the president can be correct.
Second, it sill in doubt that when the Buzzoff company returns to Palm city, it can still do the same standard of work. We need to examine the question that the warehouse loss control in Palm city is still serious under Buzzoff's service. It is possible that in the last month, a more feral species of pest came into the Palm city that caused F-company had over $20000 food loss. And this kind of pest may be still last in the Palm city for next several months, so Buzzoff company cannot control the food loss either, or it may have greater value loss than Fly-away company did. However, if this situation is not going to happen or the type of pest was the same in the last month, then the president's advice is viable.
To sum up, the suggestion that the food company should let the Buzzoff company return to provide pest control service to reduce the total cost is unreasonable. The questions discussed above should be considered and they can better form a better evaluation to the president's suggestion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 402 350
No. of Characters: 1914 1500
No. of Different Words: 158 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.478 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.761 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.371 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 131 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 54 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.976 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.867 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.412 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.585 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.144 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 353, Rule ID: RETURN_BACK[1]
Message: Use simply 'return'.
Suggestion: return
...ntrol the cost, the food company should return back to use Buzzoffs service. However, this ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 688, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'presidents'' or 'president's'?
Suggestion: presidents'; president's
...as the same in the last month, then the presidents advice is viable. To sum up, the sug...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 264, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'presidents'' or 'president's'?
Suggestion: presidents'; president's
... better form a better evaluation to the presidents suggestion.
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, may, regarding, second, so, still, then, thus, whereas, kind of, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1957.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 402.0 441.139720559 91% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.86815920398 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.47771567384 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.42798430686 2.78398813304 87% => OK
Unique words: 164.0 204.123752495 80% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.407960199005 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 594.0 705.55239521 84% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.3025387104 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 130.466666667 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.8 23.324526521 115% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.26666666667 5.70786347227 110% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.31929433816 0.218282227539 146% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.122513921235 0.0743258471296 165% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.083248050966 0.0701772020484 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.230511601244 0.128457276422 179% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0411496354255 0.0628817314937 65% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.26 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.64 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 98.500998004 70% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.