Amtrak is an intercity train service currently owned by the United States government. There are a number of critics who believe that the government should not own Amtrak and that Amtrak should be sold to a privately-owned company. These critics put forward several arguments to support their position.
First, the critics point out that the government loses money on many Amtrak routes. In its effort to serve citizens in all parts of the country, Amtrak maintains routes even in remote and less populated areas. Those routes are not used by enough passengers to cover the cost of maintaining them. The amount of money lost every year due to underuse is sizeable: the government loses up to several hundred dollars per passenger on some routes: and the total losses due to underuse add up to hundreds of millions of dollars every year If Amtrak was privatized, these unprofitable routes could be cut.
Second, government ownership of Amtrak is unfair to privately owned transportation companies such as airlines Government fundi ng of Amtrak means that ticket prices on Amtrak are cheaper than they otherwise would be. However, the government does not give airline companies money so they can lower their ticket prices. This situation clearly is unfair to airlines and other private transportation companies because they must compete against trains for customers.
Third, critics maintain that if the government wants to support national transportation, it should spend its money elsewhere Rail travel is relatively unimportant in the United States: Amtrak currently transports less than 1 percent of the people traveling between cities. A large majority of intercity travelers use other means of transport, such as private cars. The critics argue that rather than finance Amtrak, the government should direct its funding at maintaining and improving the highway system so that intercity car travel becomes faster and more efficient.
Both the reading and writing discuss Amtrak which is an intercity train service in the USA and is owned by the United States government. In the reading, critics have several reasons to explain why the governments should sell Amtrak to a private company. However, the lecturer expresses that each of the reasons has its weakness.
First of all, the reading passage mentions that the government loses money on remote and unused routes because the number of passengers is not enough to afford the cost of maintaining trains. While the professor states that the goal of Amtrak is not obtaining profit for the government, actually, providing accessibility for residents of remote areas is their main goal because they have exactly as rights as other people have.
Secondly, the author of the reading states that Amtrak is being supported by the government unfairly and that the government should support the other transportation companies But the lecturer rebuts this idea. He thinks that the government has supported airline companies, for example, it pays the cost of the building of the air traffic control or training of the airline officers. Also, the sattelightes that help to air travel safety have been supported by the government.
Finally, although the author of the reading passage insists that the government should direct its funding at enhancing the highway system quality, the professor counters that argument by asserting that if the railroad system has a great quality, most people use that instead of their private cars. ٔupdated railroad transportation system can transfer people fastly like as the high-speed train lines of the Japon or Europe do.
flaws:
No. of Words: 268 250
Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 22 in 30
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 9 12
No. of Words: 268 250
No. of Characters: 1369 1200
No. of Different Words: 143 150
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.046 4.2
Average Word Length: 5.108 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.594 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 82 60
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 46 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.778 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.447 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.778 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.439 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.439 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.143 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 4