In a survey Boulder Valley residents ranked hiking and climbing among their favorite recreational activities Boulder Mountain just outside the city is rarely used for these pursuits however and the city park department devotes little of its budget to main | TOEFL IELTS GMAT GRE SAT ACT PTE ESL

Essay topics:

In a survey, Boulder Valley residents ranked hiking and climbing among their favorite recreational activities. Boulder Mountain, just outside the city, is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes little of its budget to maintaining the mountain's hiking trails. For years there have been complaints from residents about litter, debris, and hazards along the trails. In response, the state has recently announced plans to renovate Boulder Mountain trails. Use of the mountain for hiking and climbing is therefore sure to increase. The city government should for that reason devote more money in this year's budget to Boulder Mountain hiking trails.

The author proposes increasing the city budget for Boulder Mountain rock climbing facilities. He or she offers an interesting argument, but it suffers from some logical flaws and gaps in evidence. While the connections suggested are reasonable, there are many other possible scenarios that should discourage the city from devoting funds to this project.

To begin with, consider the surveys assessing Boulder Valley residents’ activity preferences. The author assumes that the stated preference for rock climbing will lead to usage. Yet, there is no reason to believe that responses on a survey will correspond to actual behavior. Many surveys conducted at the start of a new year find that people are devoted to losing weight or learning a language. Yet, we rarely see a corresponding uptick in gym memberships or language courses. What's more, the phrasing of the survey results is vague, and could be misleading. It merely says that residents list hiking and climbing "among" their favorite recreational activities. Rock climbing could have been listed 233rd in a ranking of 250 "favorite" activities. Thus, we must ask, do residents really prefer new climbing facilities over a well-maintained golf course or a renovated library? Without access to the content of the surveys, we cannot determine whether people’s stated preferences merit the proposed funding plan.

Let us assume, though, that the surveys indicate real interest. We are then prompted to ask whether renovated trails will really lead to increased usage. The survey cited offers no information about the reasons that people do not use the trails and rock-climbing facilities. Are trail debris and hazards really the main factors blocking usage? Or is it a lack of parking facilities? Perhaps it’s simply a lack of free time. Without more thorough survey responses, we cannot answer these questions, and therefore cannot project increased us age.

Finally, even if we assume that the above assumptions will all hold up, we cannot take for grated the state's promise to renovate the trails. Who was making these announcements, and what might be their motives? As we all know, politicians tend to promise their constituents the moon during an election year. There may be no real plan in place to follow up on this promise. The state officials also need to specify a timeline for renovation before the city can precisely plan its funding for climbing facilities. It's easy to see how an empty promise from the state government can lead to upgraded but unused climbing facilities.

A close examination of all the assumptions made in the author’s proposal reveals that the city does not have enough justification to fund the climbing facilities. Although the proposal certainly points out a possible course of action, city officials should not act until they have more information.

Votes

Essay Categories

GMAT/GRE Argument Task

Comments

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 479, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: What's
...in gym memberships or language courses. Whats more, the phrasing of the survey result...
^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, if, may, really, so, then, therefore, thus, well, while, in fact, to begin with

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2425.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 457.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 5.30634573304 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62358717085 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95048654734 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 264.0 204.123752495 129% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.577680525164 0.468620217663 123% => OK
syllable_count: 745.2 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 31.7582545914 57.8364921388 55% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 86.6071428571 119.503703932 72% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.3214285714 23.324526521 70% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.53571428571 5.70786347227 62% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.248048059483 0.218282227539 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0588396164315 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0625852887754 0.0701772020484 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.121679771869 0.128457276422 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0475796223208 0.0628817314937 76% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.7 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.22 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.75 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 125.0 98.500998004 127% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, if, may, really, so, then, therefore, thus, well, while, in fact, to begin with

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments