The following appeared in a memorandum written by the chairperson of the West Egg Town Council.
"Two years ago, consultants predicted that West Egg's landfill, which is used for garbage disposal, would be completely filled within five years. During the past two years, however, the town's residents have been recycling twice as much material as they did in previous years. Next month the amount of recycled material — which includes paper, plastic, and metal — should further increase, since charges for pickup of other household garbage will double. Furthermore, over 90 percent of the respondents to a recent survey said that they would do more recycling in the future. Because of our town's strong commitment to recycling, the available space in our landfill should last for considerably longer than predicted."
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 chairperson of the West Egg Town Council is convinced that the landfill will last longer than expected based on the current growth and expected increase in recycling. Although the author's argument may seem credible and logical at first sight, a closer examination reveals that the chairperson's claims are replete with assumptions and holes. Unless further evidence is substantiated and evaluated, it will be difficult to conclude that the landfill will not be completely filled within the next five years.
Firstly, author adduces the two-fold increase in recycling by the town residents to claim that there will be less garbage. However, we need to know the exact figures on how many residents recycled, how much more they recycled, and how much regular waste they produced. The author does not specify how many people recycled twice as much compared to the previous years. For example, if only 1% of the entire residents recyled more, then the two-fold growth will not be a significant change. Furthermore, if the total amount that these people recycled was 1% of their entire garbage in the previous years but now reuse 2%, the amount of total garbage is still 98% of all waste produced. The growth in recylcing will thus be immaterial, and garbage may quickly fill the landfill. In addition, if the total amount of waste produced by each resident increases, the growth in recycling will not have an effect. Consider when residents double the paper, plastic and metal recylced but produce three times as much other waste compared to last year. Then, the amount of waste produced can match that predicted by the consultants.
Secondly, the chairperson assumes that the predictions made by the consultants does not factor the growth in recycling. Yet, we do not know that this is true. To make his argument more coherent, the author must demonstrate that the consultants' foreshadowing did not consider the residents' commitment to recycle. If however, the consultants were aware of the strong willingness to reuse materials and factored into their expectations that people were going to recycle, then the prediction that the landfill will be completely full in five years will be accurate. In fact, it could be the case that the consultants had thought that the residents would recycle even more. Then, the available space might last shorter than predicted.
Finally, the author uses a recent survey to demonstrate an even larger amount of recycling conduced by the residents. To support the chairperson's argument, we need to know that the survey was representative of the entire population at West Egg. As it stands, the 90% can reflect the preferences of only five people or the entire residents. A biased survey, which asked only to residents who are ardent about recylcing will weaken the author's claim of a strong commitment to recyling. On the other hand, a survey that can clearly reflect the entire West Egg residents will strengthen the assumption that the town is willing to recycle.
In conclusion, the available space in West Egg's landfill might last longer than predicted. Nonetheless, as it stands, the chairperson's position is not persuasive enough. Until further evidence, such as the exact number of people recycling and the representativeness ofthe survey, is provided, the author's argument will not be able to stand rebuttal.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 9 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 547 350
No. of Characters: 2741 1500
No. of Different Words: 239 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.836 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.011 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.715 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 200 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 149 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 113 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.038 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.192 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.294 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.486 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.087 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 185, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ted increase in recycling. Although the authors argument may seem credible and logical ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 280, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'residents'' or 'resident's'?
Suggestion: residents'; resident's
...ants foreshadowing did not consider the residents commitment to recycle. If however, the ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 134, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'chairpersons'' or 'chairperson's'?
Suggestion: chairpersons'; chairperson's
...nduced by the residents. To support the chairpersons argument, we need to know that the surv...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 298, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...tiveness ofthe survey, is provided, the authors argument will not be able to stand rebu...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, may, nonetheless, second, secondly, so, still, then, thus, for example, in addition, in conclusion, in fact, such as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 24.0 12.9520958084 185% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2816.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 547.0 441.139720559 124% => OK
Chars per words: 5.14808043876 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.83611736076 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77681181148 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 246.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.449725776965 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 846.9 705.55239521 120% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 18.0 8.76447105788 205% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.5437920286 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.307692308 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0384615385 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.34615384615 5.70786347227 129% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.218900512044 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0589156241836 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0513910702885 0.0701772020484 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.127937115864 0.128457276422 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0336431835269 0.0628817314937 54% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.59 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.23 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.