“The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of the Juniper Café, a small, local coffee shop in the downtown area of a small American city:
“We must reduce overhead here at the café. Instead of opening at 6 a.m. weekdays, we will now open at 8 a.m. On weekends, we will only be open from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. The decrease in hours of operations will help save money because we won’t be paying for utilities, employee wages, or other operating costs during the hours we are closed. This is the best strategy for us to save money and remain in business without having to eliminate jobs.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to assess the reasonableness of both the prediction and the argument upon which it is based. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.”
The owner of the cafe states that they will now open at 8 a.m instead of 6 a.m and they will only be open from 9 a.m until 4 p.m. The owner of the cafe predicts that decrease in hours of operation will help save money and that it is the best strategy to save money and help the business to continue further in future. The owner does not provide any evidence to support the validity of the prediction. The owner does not discuss other strategies that hep in saving money. Few questions needs to be answered in order to evaluate the reasonableness of the prediction and argument.
Firstly, it needs to consider the time when the cafe is usually crowded and whether this change in timings will affect their business. If most of the customers visit the cafe after 4 p.m or before 9 a.m on weekends, then the change in the timings will decrease the profits. The owner should also take the customers' preferred timings into consideration.
Secondly, did the owner consider other strategies to save money and then came to conclusion that this is the best strategy? Did the owner took all factors into consideration before concluding that the one which owner stated is the best strategy? The answers to these questions helps in assessing the reasonableness of the prediction. If number of people who visit the cafe decrease because of the change in timings, then it would lead to decrease in profits. If employees wages are per-day basis rather than per-hour basis, then the change in timings will not help in saving money.
Thirdly, the owner needs to answer if the money saved by decreasing the hours of operations will help in increasing the profits. If the cafe suffers loss in the business despite saving money, then the stated strategy will not be considered as the best strategy.
Thirdly, there is no evidence that the proposed strategy is the best strategy for saving money. If there is evidence that most people visit the cafe during the changed timings and the change in timings will not affect customers' attraction to the cafe, then it offers support for the argument.
Finally, when all the factors are taken into consideration, it offers support for the validity of the prediction. The owner of the cafe should also state other strategies for saving money and show how the one which is stated is the best strategy. Then, it helps in assessing the reasonableness of the prediction and the argument on which it is based.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 428 350
No. of Characters: 1960 1500
No. of Different Words: 151 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.548 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.579 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.512 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 125 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 31 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.526 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.098 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.376 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.591 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 308, Rule ID: IN_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean: 'in the future'?
Suggestion: in the future
...d help the business to continue further in future. The owner does not provide any evidenc...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 319, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...business to continue further in future. The owner does not provide any evidence to ...
^^^
Line 1, column 402, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...support the validity of the prediction. The owner does not discuss other strategies...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, firstly, if, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly
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 : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2020.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 423.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 4.77541371158 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.53508145475 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.56339132391 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 159.0 204.123752495 78% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.375886524823 0.468620217663 80% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 621.9 705.55239521 88% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.7087854772 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.315789474 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2631578947 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.05263157895 5.70786347227 71% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.0753641569 0.218282227539 35% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0248114848821 0.0743258471296 33% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0396985496816 0.0701772020484 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0449427376008 0.128457276422 35% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0465264501324 0.0628817314937 74% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.74 12.5979740519 85% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.27 8.32208582834 87% => OK
difficult_words: 68.0 98.500998004 69% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.