In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating and fishing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes little of its budget to maintaining riverside recreational facilities. For years there have been complaints from residents about the quality of the river's water and the river's smell. In response, the state has recently announced plans to clean up Mason River. Use of the river for water sports is therefore sure to increase. The city government should for that reason devote more money in this year's budget to riverside recreational facilities.
According to the argument, the city government should devote more money to riverside recreational facilities. Although this argument may seem plausible at first glance, a number of assumptions was made regarding the survey, the complaints from residents and the effect of plan to clean the river. We need to examine these assumptions so as to evaluate the argument critically.
To begin with, the author of the argument assumes that the result of the survey concerning the rand of recreational activities could represent most of the residents. But this might not be true since we do not have enough information about the respondents in the survey. It is probable that the survey only sample five people, which is far less than the total population in the city. Under such circumstances, the survey sould not represent most of the dwellers. Similarly, if the respondents are not randomly sampled, the result of the survey could not provide valuable information. For example, if the survey is conducted in a area along the river where residents are more likely to prefer water sports, the conclusion that most residents in the cities prefer water sports would be untenable.
In addition, it is also assumed that the complaints about the quality of the river's water and smell could necessarily imply that most people concern about this issue. However, maybe there are few people complained about the river. If so, the smell of the river may be so taint that most people along the river could not sense. Or perhaps, although most of the inhabitants don't like the smell of the river, they do not hope the government to allocate budget to clean the river since they would like the government to promote the transportations or educations. If any of the aforementioned conditions is the case, the conclusion that the governmetn should devote more money to clean the river is not reasonable
Finally, even if the assumptions mentioned above is true, the assumption concerning the effect of the cleaning plan could not hold water. It is assumed that the smell of river is due to the factors that the government could handle. However, it is likely that the smell could be attributed to the natural sources like some material in the river which could be dated back to the time the river formed. Likewise, it is equally possible that the cost of cleaning the river could be coverd by the government budget even if the there are possible solutions. If the cost so high that it far beyond the budget, the cleaning plan would not make the river clean. Therefore, we need more information to examine this assumption before we can justify the argument.
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: 20 15
No. of Words: 447 350
No. of Characters: 2146 1500
No. of Different Words: 185 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.598 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.801 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.616 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 135 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 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: 22.35 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.869 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.363 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.544 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.176 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 335, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...r. We need to examine these assumptions so as to evaluate the argument critically. T...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 627, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... example, if the survey is conducted in a area along the river where residents ar...
^
Line 5, column 373, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...rhaps, although most of the inhabitants dont like the smell of the river, they do no...
^^^^
Line 5, column 709, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ney to clean the river is not reasonable Finally, even if the assumptions mention...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, likewise, may, regarding, similarly, so, therefore, well, as to, for example, in addition, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2198.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 446.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 4.92825112108 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5955099915 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69764022141 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 193.0 204.123752495 95% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.432735426009 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 684.0 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.3806403611 57.8364921388 101% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.684210526 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.4736842105 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.57894736842 5.70786347227 133% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.137460693306 0.218282227539 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0468406446676 0.0743258471296 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0464417004026 0.0701772020484 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0954094094635 0.128457276422 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0453996657341 0.0628817314937 72% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.61 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.07 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 93.0 98.500998004 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.