"Of the two leading real estate firms in our town—Adams Realty and Fitch Realty—Adams Realty is clearly superior. Adams has 40 real estate agents; in contrast, Fitch has 25, many of whom work only part-time. Moreover, Adams' revenue last year was twice as high as that of Fitch and included home sales that averaged $168,000, compared to Fitch's $144,000. Homes listed with Adams sell faster as well: ten years ago I listed my home with Fitch, and it took more than four months to sell; last year, when I sold another home, I listed it with Adams, and it took only one month. Thus, if you want to sell your home quickly and at a good price, you should use Adams Realty."
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 for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
There is possibility of accepting Adams Realty as better in comparison to Fitch Realty because of the stated reasons for its outperformance. But, even these reasons do not have solid and stable grounds which renders the author's line of reasoning cogent and susceptible to being undermined. Several assumptions and flaws have ensued in an argument that can be questioned in several from several directions.
First of all, the author presumes that the superiority of a real estate firm is established by the number of agents it consists of. Quantity may be a way to determine the better one of the two, but it may not be the case always. What if the quality of services or the expertise provided by only 25 agents associated with Fitch Realty is better and more promising in comparison to the 40 agents employed by Adams Realty? Or what id the agents employed with Fitch Realty are more competent than those with Adams Realty. Provision of extra services like discounts on specific houses, guidance related to choice of houses exclusively by Fitch Realty is also probable. This could enhance the reputation of Fitch Realty in the market, thus strengthening superiority of Fitch over Adams. Answer to some of these questions could provide a deeper insight into the actuality of the situation between the two leading real estate firms.
Second of all, the information regarding revenues made by Adams and that made by Fitch has been given only for the last year. One year may prove to insufficient in estimating the overall revenue made by a firm over a period of say a decade. Reduction in revenue for just a single year may not affect the superiority of one firm over another. Furthermore, it is possible that Fitch sold more offices, apartments or anything other than houses in the last year than it sold houses due to which Adams made 186,000 dollars whereas Fitch made 144,000 dollars. What if in that specific year, Fitch Realty made majority of its profit selling non-house areas?
As far as the sale of the author's houses in concerned, the house sold in association with Fitch Realty was an event that occurred ten years ago, whereas, the second house was sold one year ago through the services provided by Adams reality. It is probable that average time taken for the sale of a house by Fitch Realty has reduced in 9 years, maybe even become less than that taken by Adams. Lack of comparison by the author between the two firms after a period of nine years lead the claim made by the author. Moreover, the price of the sold house has not been mentioned. Good price is most certainly a relative term that may be "good" only for the author and not for other buyers or vice versa. Hence, the selling price and the time taken to sell the house are ambiguous in nature.
To sum up, the argument made by the author may be deemed uncertain as several situations are possible if the assumptions made by the author are flawed. The main conclusion that can be drawn is that, dominance of the two real estate firms cannot determined with absoluteness as they have varying probabilities in various scenarios such as revenues earned, number and quality of the agents employed, selling price of houses etcetera.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 555 350
No. of Characters: 2602 1500
No. of Different Words: 240 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.854 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.688 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.495 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 179 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.13 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.034 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.739 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.515 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 222, Rule ID: ADVERB_WORD_ORDER[3]
Message: The adverb 'always' is usually not used at the end of a sentence.
... of the two, but it may not be the case always. What if the quality of services or the...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 278, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...the quality of services or the expertise provided by only 25 agents associated wi...
^^
Line 9, column 209, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ion that can be drawn is that, dominance of the two real estate firms cannot dete...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, hence, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, so, then, thus, whereas, in conclusion, such as, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 83.0 55.5748502994 149% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2670.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 555.0 441.139720559 126% => OK
Chars per words: 4.81081081081 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.85370353223 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59126037016 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 248.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.446846846847 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 849.6 705.55239521 120% => 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: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.6647360946 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.086956522 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.1304347826 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.4347826087 5.70786347227 113% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.326262397858 0.218282227539 149% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0953606638856 0.0743258471296 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0693905134102 0.0701772020484 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.173050619506 0.128457276422 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0867263322489 0.0628817314937 138% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.91 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.21 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.