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.
The given statement does not provide enough information to determine whether the pet food company should devote resources to further investigation or not.
Firstly, we cannot assume that the recalled food has some problems without looking at some external causes such as packaging. For example, if the pet food was in cans- were the cans damaged from any end? If the pet food was in cardboard boxes- was the seal intact? If any kind of tampering had taken place in the packaging, then it might have resulted in the pet food getting soiled due to air and moisture present in the environment. In this case, the company should not devote further resources to the investigation as there is no issue with the pet food.
Secondly, nothing is stated about the expiration date or the "best before use" date. Maybe the consumers who brought expired pet food faced certain problems as their pets experienced vomiting, lethargy and other signs of illness. It is also possible that these chemicals used in pet food were approved for use in pet food, but only before the expiration date. Hence further information is required to proceed to the next steps.
Thirdly, there is no mention of the production process of the pet food. There are high chances that the permissive level of chemicals was crossed during the initial stages of pet food and hence it was not detected in quality checks, if any. Even though the company is using chemicals that are the approved, we do not know anything about the ratio of these chemicals in pet food. Further information is needed to evaluate the above.
Lastly, information related to the type of pet food, how much is the serving size for different pets etc is required before reaching a conclusion. Whether the pet food company should devote further resources to the investigation will depend on all the above factors.
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: 16 15
No. of Words: 315 350
No. of Characters: 1493 1500
No. of Different Words: 167 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.213 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.74 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.486 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 105 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 82 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 47 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 29 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.688 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.583 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.379 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.584 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 371, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...d, but only before the expiration date. Hence further information is required to proc...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 148, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Whether” 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.
... required before reaching a conclusion. Whether the pet food company should devote furt...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, lastly, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, for example, kind of, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 13.0 28.8173652695 45% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1551.0 2260.96107784 69% => OK
No of words: 315.0 441.139720559 71% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92380952381 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.21286593061 4.56307096286 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.57023291818 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 168.0 204.123752495 82% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.533333333333 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 486.9 705.55239521 69% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 37.9224125683 57.8364921388 66% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.9375 119.503703932 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.6875 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.125 5.70786347227 142% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.497734112772 0.218282227539 228% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.17700084385 0.0743258471296 238% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0980536154951 0.0701772020484 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.292410984888 0.128457276422 228% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0576440809032 0.0628817314937 92% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.6 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.26 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.04 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 98.500998004 70% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 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.