The following appeared as part of an article in a Dillton newspaper.
"In an effort to bring new jobs to Dillton and stimulate the city's flagging economy, Dillton's city council voted last year to lower the city's corporate tax rate by 15 percent; at the same time, the city began offering generous relocation grants to any company that would move to Dillton. Since these changes went into effect, two new factories have opened in Dillton. Although the two factories employ more than 1,000 people, the unemployment rate in Dillton remains unchanged. The only clear explanation for this is that the new factories are staffed with out-of-town workers rather than Dillton residents."
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
The author of the article presents a proposal implemented by Dillton’s city council to lower the corporate tax and offer relocation grants to any company willing to set up their business in the town. The effects observed include opening of two new factories employing more than 1000 people without bringing significant decrease in the unemployment rate. Towards the end, a reasonable argument is provided that the staff of these new factories mostly comprises of migrant workers. This can be one of the logical reasons but looking at the facts stated there can be some other convincing explanations to account for unchanged employment rate.
First of all, the city council has considered specifically to reduce the corporate tax by 15%. It can be possible that many companies are not satisfied with this decision. they might be wanting further reduction in the corporate tax or some other kind of tax incentives as well. Thus, many companies are not being lured to start their ventures in Dillton. We can infer this as despite offering reduction and relocation grants only two factories have established their ventures.
There is a possibility that Dillton is not an ideal location for corporate or financial companies. The unemployed youth might be comprising of engineering or management graduates looking out for white collar jobs. The job opportunities provided by these new factories is being offered to people who generally engage in manual labour. Regarding more than 1000 people employed at these new factories, they can be blue collar workers who were not content with their previous jobs and thus switched to these new factories.
This argument also involves comparison of two different years. The job market and circumstances might be varying in these two situations considering the city and global economy. It can be possible that international job opportunities have reduced increasing unemployment rate from those job seekers. Thus, the net unemployment rate is not showing significant change as on one side jobs have been created whereas people are even losing out on job offers.
Therefore, the author has offered one reasonable explanation which can be true. Although, after analysing the facts carefully and considering the situation from all perspectives we draw some different conclusions as well. There is a need for some detailed information in order to come down to the correct inference.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 385 350
No. of Characters: 1995 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.43 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.182 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.859 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 144 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 66 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.263 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.742 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.474 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.299 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.537 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 451, Rule ID: COMPRISES_OF[1]
Message: Did you mean 'comprises' or 'consists of'?
Suggestion: comprises; consists of
...the staff of these new factories mostly comprises of migrant workers. This can be one of the...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 173, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: They
...s are not satisfied with this decision. they might be wanting further reduction in t...
^^^^
Line 3, column 184, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...atisfied with this decision. they might be wanting further reduction in the corporate tax ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 131, Rule ID: COMPRISING_OF[1]
Message: Did you mean 'comprising' or 'consisting of'?
Suggestion: comprising; consisting of
...ompanies. The unemployed youth might be comprising of engineering or management graduates loo...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, look, regarding, so, therefore, thus, well, whereas, kind of, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2043.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 385.0 441.139720559 87% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.30649350649 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.4296068528 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89380259158 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.54025974026 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 639.0 705.55239521 91% => 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: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 36.0367867602 57.8364921388 62% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.15 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.25 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.8 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.179819184331 0.218282227539 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0575283950957 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.066943816617 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0994191910192 0.128457276422 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.055799534957 0.0628817314937 89% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.52 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.8 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.