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.
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 the assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The author concludes that the cleaning up of river announced by the government will increase the use of the river for water sports and for this reason the government should increase the funding for the maintenance of riverside recreational activities. Nevertheless, the arguments of the author have many flows depending only on assumptions and extra factors should be examined.
First of all, it is not mentioned how many people were asked in the survey and if the number is representative. A large number of people should be asked and it is important these people to live in different parts of the city and not only close to river-side. Also in the above text, the author stated that there were complaints from residents but the actual number of them is not specified. So it is not clear if many people were upset with the smelly and polluted river or just a small portion of them.
Moreover, according to the survey water sports is one of the most favorite activities for residents of Manson City but it is not clarified if the people would wish to exercise fishing, swimming, and boating in the river. It is easy to understand why people would like a clean river since a clean and healthy environment is desirable for everyone but this does not implicate necessarily that they want to use the river for the recreational activities. More specific questions should be included in the survey’s questionnaire in order to be clear if the residents desire to use the river for water sports. So the author’s assumption that the use of the river for water sports activities will increase is arbitrary.
Additionally, the author’s argument is weak and not enough to encourage the state to increase the budget for riverside facilities. He should specify and indicate how these facilities would be an enticing project for state and how their use would increase government resources. However, author overlooked these explanations and failed to motivate enough the government.
Finally, it should be mentioned by the author that a beautiful and clean river would make the city to look more attractive for visitors. Tourism would definitely contribute to economic development of the area and eventually offer a more advanced and comfortable life to residents. Therefore, the state would have sufficient reasons to increase financing
.
To sum up, it is obvious that the author’s conclusion is weak, full of flows and relies only on assumptions. Evidence should be analyzed more carefully, a more reliable and precise survey should be carried out and a strong and enough cogent argument should be presented to convince the government to increase funding.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
flaws:
the arguments are not exactly correct. see a sample:
https://www.testbig.com/story/gre-argument-essay-topic-16-outline
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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: 18 15
No. of Words: 438 350
No. of Characters: 2168 1500
No. of Different Words: 190 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.575 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.95 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.757 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 157 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 113 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 97 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.333 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.266 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.352 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.586 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.127 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...nd extra factors should be examined. First of all, it is not mentioned how ma...
^^^
Line 4, column 116, Rule ID: LARGE_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, or simply use 'many' or 'numerous'
Suggestion: Many; Numerous
...ey and if the number is representative. A large number of people should be asked and it is import...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ver or just a small portion of them. Moreover, according to the survey water ...
^^
Line 10, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...d to motivate enough the government. Finally, it should be mentioned by the a...
^^
Line 10, column 357, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...ufficient reasons to increase financing . To sum up, it is obvious that the auth...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, look, moreover, nevertheless, so, therefore, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 23.0 11.1786427146 206% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2243.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 438.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.12100456621 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.57476223824 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93307582151 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 196.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.447488584475 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 711.9 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
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: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.6489542331 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.611111111 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.3333333333 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.0 5.70786347227 105% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.189776048679 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0651177183126 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0614627687711 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.099925433902 0.128457276422 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0716076760278 0.0628817314937 114% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.43 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.