A pet food company recalled 4 million pounds of pet food in response to complaints that pets that had consumed the food experienced vomiting, lethargy, and other signs of illness. After the recall, the pet food company tested samples from the recalled food and determined that all chemicals found in the food were chemicals that are approved for use in pet food. Thus, the recalled food was not responsible for these symptoms, and the company should not devote further resources to the investigation.
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 if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
A pet food company had to recall four million pounds of pet food in response to complaints that the pets started showing symptoms, similar to illness after consuming the company's pet food. As a result, the company conducted a few tests on the samples of recalled pet food and concluded that the chemicals used in the pet food were approved for usage. Therefore, the company is of the opinion that the recalled food is not responsible for the pet's condition and it should not devote further resources to the investigation. The claim by the company looks legible, although, a closer look unearths a few possibilities that could call into question the company's claim about it's pet food.
Firstly, the company states that they themselves conducted the tests on the recalled food samples. What if the company have published dubious results of the tests in order to clear its name of any wrong doing? What if the food samples indeed consisted of chemicals that were not authorized by the food department? This would mean that the sickness, portrayed by the pets were indeed due to the pet food, developed by the company. To ensure impartial results, the tests should be conducted by a neutral body.
Secondly, even if we assume that the tests conducted were truly impartial, the statement does not specify the number of times these tests were conducted. What if the tests were conducted only once? What if a second test gives out results that highlight the use unsafe chemicals? Moreover, what if the testing equipment were faulty and they give out erroneous results? This could mean that the results published by the company are not credible, and extensive testing is necessary to categorically state if the pet food samples are safe or no.
Lastly, the company fails to provide the metrics against which the results of the experiments were tested. What if the metrics that the company employees currently is outmoded? Hence, it could be possible that the chemicals, previously considered safe, are not safe anymore. This discrepancy in metrics could explain the reason behind the pet owners thinking that the pet food by the company is making their animals sick whereas the company refutes it.
In sum, the evidence provided by the company is not categorical. As we have seen in the paragraphs above, multiple alternative possibilities cast a doubt on the company's claim regarding the safety of its products. Therefore, it is up to the company now to provide more convincing and irrefutable evidence to the pet-owners
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: 21 15
No. of Words: 421 350
No. of Characters: 2054 1500
No. of Different Words: 190 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.53 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.879 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.59 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 147 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 124 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.048 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.234 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.81 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.39 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.583 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.194 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 65, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...o recall four million pounds of pet food in response to complaints that the pets ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, hence, if, lastly, look, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, so, therefore, whereas, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2105.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 421.0 441.139720559 95% => OK
Chars per words: 5.0 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52971130743 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66649481413 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.463182897862 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 652.5 705.55239521 92% => 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: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.6431225998 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.238095238 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.0476190476 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.47619047619 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.525011545698 0.218282227539 241% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.167287324502 0.0743258471296 225% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.184168932124 0.0701772020484 262% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.296128446527 0.128457276422 231% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.215430063265 0.0628817314937 343% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.72 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.38 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.