"Commuters complain that increased rush-hour traffic on Blue Highway between the suburbs and the city center has doubled their commuting time. The favored proposal of the motorists' lobby is to widen the highway, adding an additional lane of traffic. Opponents note that last year's addition of a lane to the nearby Green Highway was followed by a worsening of traffic jams on it. Their suggested alternative proposal is adding a bicycle lane to Blue Highway. Many area residents are keen bicyclists. A bicycle lane would encourage them to use bicycles to commute, it is argued, thereby reducing rush-hour traffic." Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
Author has made an argument that instead of adding an additional lane, adding a bicycle lane will reduce the traffic on Blue Highway during rush-hour. However, some questions that are needed to be answered by an author in order to justify the argument.
First of all, author has not mentioned that on what basis he has stated that the traffic during rush-hour has doubled the commuting time. How many complaints have registered about the increase of traffic in rush-hour which caused the doubling of commuting time, Are there different commuters present or only the same two-four commuters are registering the complaints again and again, what is the specific duration of rush-hour also Is there any another possibility of doubling the commuting time, all these questions make his statement unreasonable.
Furthermore, he has explained how adding an additional lane of traffic will not resolve a problem by giving an example of Green Highway. But, there is a possibility that the conditions in Blue Highway are different from the Green Highway and adding an additional lane might resolve the problem. Hence, author has not discussed the similarity in causes of traffic for both the Highways.
In addition to that, he has suggested the solution of reducing the traffic is adding a bicycle lane. To support his solution he claimed that many area residents are keen bicyclists and hence bicycle lane would encourage them to use bicycles to commute. This claim has some weak areas which apparently makes the argument weak. It is mentioned in the argument that Blue Highway joins the suburbs and the city center. Thus, author should have answered the questions like, do bicyclists have the residents in the area which is covered by the Blue Highway, what is the actual ratio of bicyclists to the overall population, what is the overall distance covered by Blue Highway, is it possible to cover that amount of distance by average bicyclist using ordinary bicycle, do roads linking the Blue Highway have bicycle lane, is it feasible for a bicyclist to travel on daily basis and does the condition of the road suitable to travel by bicycle.
In general, it can be concluded that the author has not provided any answers of all above mentioned questions which would help to decide whether the solution recommended by the author is feasible or not. Mentioned questions judge the argument in all the possible aspects and lack of providing answers makes the solution unreasonable.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 408 350
No. of Characters: 2023 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.494 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.958 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.586 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.2 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 19.81 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.733 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.359 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.359 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.165 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 45, Rule ID: ADD_AN_ADDITIONAL[1]
Message: This phrase might be redundant. Use simply 'adding a lane'.
Suggestion: adding a lane
...or has made an argument that instead of adding an additional lane, adding a bicycle lane will reduce the ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 35, Rule ID: ADD_AN_ADDITIONAL[1]
Message: This phrase might be redundant. Use simply 'adding a lane'.
Suggestion: adding a lane
...ble. Furthermore, he has explained how adding an additional lane of traffic will not resolve a problem b...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 242, Rule ID: ADD_AN_ADDITIONAL[1]
Message: This phrase might be redundant. Use simply 'adding a lane'.
Suggestion: adding a lane
...re different from the Green Highway and adding an additional lane might resolve the problem. Hence, autho...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, apparently, but, first, furthermore, hence, however, if, so, thus, in addition, in general, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2063.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 408.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.05637254902 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49433085973 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.63667967887 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 179.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.438725490196 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 656.1 705.55239521 93% => 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: 0.0 8.76447105788 0% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 125.752287276 57.8364921388 217% => The lengths of sentences changed so frequently.
Chars per sentence: 147.357142857 119.503703932 123% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.1428571429 23.324526521 125% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.85714285714 5.70786347227 138% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.346216847456 0.218282227539 159% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.132065183133 0.0743258471296 178% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.11118473647 0.0701772020484 158% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.192842276431 0.128457276422 150% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.106287955209 0.0628817314937 169% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.0 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.04 48.3550499002 87% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.66 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.56 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.