The following is a letter that recently appeared in the Oak City Gazette, a local newspaper.
"The primary function of the Committee for a Better Oak City is to advise the city government on how to make the best use of the city's limited budget. However, at some of our recent meetings we failed to make important decisions because of the foolish objections raised by committee members who are not even residents of Oak City. People who work in Oak City but who live elsewhere cannot fully understand the business and politics of the city. After all, only Oak City residents pay city taxes, and therefore only residents understand how that money could best be used to improve the city. We recommend, then, that the Committee for a Better Oak City vote to restrict its membership to city residents only. We predict that, without the interference of non-residents, the committee will be able to make Oak City a better place in which to live and work."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
Given prompt explains non-resident of Oak city are being obstacle for the proper utilization of city budget by objecting decisions in the committee meeting which as a result has delayed development of the city. According to the contention, if the non-resident do not interfere the committee will make Oak City a better place but to substantiate the argument three questions should be answered.
Firstly, how can the argument be made without knowing the proportion of resident and non-resident in the Oak city? May be majority of the people staying in Oak city are non-resident and they are directly influenced by the decisions made by the committee. Moreover, isn’t it possible that the limited budget is due to having fewer resident in Oak city. If the number of tax paying is increased in the city there will be more budget resulting in better development of the place. Also, there might be more number of non-resident in committee due to more involvement of them in the development works of the city. If that is the case then it is essential for the committee to listen to their suggestions. If any of the above case is true, the argument given does not hold water.
Further, isn’t it possible that the decisions made by the committee will not yield the optimal result for the city? The decisions made by the committee might be flawed and could be irrelavent for the city. It is also possible that the non-resident who objected regarding the decision were trying to help the people of Oak city to genuinely be a better place suggesting the committee to consider better approach for the development. If any of the above situation is true, the contention is considered flawed.
Also, isn’t it possible that the non-resident who objected for the committee descisions were advisors for the development works? They may be doing their jobs by pointing out the flaws in the decisions made by the committee. It is also possible that non-resident people objected for the decisions because they had already seen the negative affects of the implementation in their native place. So to save the Oak city, where they work, they were trying to object the decisions made by the committee. If any of the case is true, the author asssumption regarding the non-resident people’s objection in the committee is not warranted.
The contention is made without considering the whole scenario and flawed assumptions. So the argument in the prompt must be carefully reacessed to draw the right conclusion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 421 350
No. of Characters: 2028 1500
No. of Different Words: 160 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.53 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.817 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.848 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 136 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 107 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 66 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.05 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.376 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.85 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.397 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.453 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.121 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 2 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 352, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...e to having fewer resident in Oak city. If the number of tax paying is increased i...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, may, moreover, regarding, so, then, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2080.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 418.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.97607655502 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52162009685 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89821057736 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 161.0 204.123752495 79% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.385167464115 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 653.4 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.1620682605 57.8364921388 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.0 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.9 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.9 5.70786347227 68% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.21225325755 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0811358535 0.0743258471296 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0788580676292 0.0701772020484 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.144634865117 0.128457276422 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.105368962759 0.0628817314937 168% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.6 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.46 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 98.500998004 76% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.