The following is a memorandum from the office of Mayor Harrison Smith Jones.
"In order to relieve Briggsville’s notorious traffic congestion, Mayor Harrison Smith Jones plans to build a multi-million dollar subway system. The subway will run through the major downtown areas, a part of the town where buses serve as the only form of public transportation. For years, residents have been complaining both about inconsistent buses, and the general lack of safety while riding the buses. Additionally, the subway will be running twenty-four hours a day. Since motorists will spend less time in traffic, Mayor Harrison Smith Jones expects to see an immediate increase in worker productivity, which will improve the economy of Briggsville."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The argument is based on unwarranted assumptions, rendering its conclusion, building a subway system will relieve the traffic and improve the economy, invalid.
First, we are not provided sufficient information about the traffic congestion. To be more specific, we don't know where the congestion occur, how often does it occur, and the root causes of the congestion. It may be that the congestion only occurs in downtown areas, which the subway system running through downtown will be helpful to solve the local traffic issue. But if the congestion is due to sudden influx of traffic from suburb areas in rush hours, the subway will not help reduce the traffic flow toward downtown if not connecting to suburb areas. Without more detailed information, it is hard to be convinced that building a subway system is going to solve the traffic issue.
Second, the argument assumes that the subway system will solve the lack of public transportation in downtown area, and also solve the inconsistency and safety issues occurs on buses. The subway will definitely help providing additional public transportation choice. But if the subway system does not run per its timetable, like the subway system in New York city, trains are almost always late, the inconsistency issue is still not eliminated. As for the safety issue, we are not sure about what safety issue the argument refers to. But with the subway running 24 hours a day, if not watched attentively during night time when less people are on the train, criminal activities could still happen.
With unwarranted assumptions and lacking of specific evidences and analysis, it fails to make a convincing case that building a subway system will solve all the current issue.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 12 15
No. of Words: 284 350
No. of Characters: 1404 1500
No. of Different Words: 141 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.105 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.944 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.618 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 105 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 64 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 45 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 29 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.261 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.583 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.411 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.612 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.176 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 105, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...fic congestion. To be more specific, we dont know where the congestion occur, how of...
^^^^
Line 5, column 216, Rule ID: ADVISE_VBG[5]
Message: The verb 'help' is used with infinitive: 'to provide' or 'provide'.
Suggestion: to provide; provide
... buses. The subway will definitely help providing additional public transportation choice...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 628, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...ched attentively during night time when less people are on the train, criminal activ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, may, second, so, still, as for
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 13.0 28.8173652695 45% => OK
Preposition: 29.0 55.5748502994 52% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1449.0 2260.96107784 64% => OK
No of words: 283.0 441.139720559 64% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.12014134276 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.10153676581 4.56307096286 90% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68524733675 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 146.0 204.123752495 72% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.515901060071 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 443.7 705.55239521 63% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 19.7664670659 61% => 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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.8497819242 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.75 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.5833333333 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.33333333333 5.70786347227 76% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.218686961594 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0885987306895 0.0743258471296 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0511489143231 0.0701772020484 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.141711575322 0.128457276422 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0272322452507 0.0628817314937 43% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.07 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 59.0 98.500998004 60% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.