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 city government’s argument that they should devote more money to riverside recreational facilities is lacking in sound reasoning. While the city could possibly increase riverside activity, the government is hasty to make assumptions about the town’s preferences and complaints, and in doing so, jumps to a fundamentally flawed conclusion.
Firstly, the Mason City government is assuming that the survey data received is accurate and representative of the town’s preferences. While it may very well be true that swimming, boating, and fishing are preferred activities of townspeople, it is not necessarily the case. It is certainly likely that only a small fraction of the population participated in the survey, and mostly likely, only adult’s results were recorded. If this were true, then water sports may not be nearly as popular amongst residents as the data suggests. By assuming that the entire population’s preferred sports were accurately ranked, the government may be making an overdrawn assumption about the proportion of the population who would potentially engage in riverside activities.
Additionally, the argument states that the majority of complaints have pertained to water quality and a noxious odor. The government uses this fact to leap to the conclusion that this must be the reason that residents do not engage in water activities in Mason City, and therefore, cleaning the river will assuage these complaints, thereby increasing riverside sport participation. It is possible that even if the city succeeds in eliminating the unpleasant odor and improving water quality, residents will remain uninterested in using the water for unrelated reasons. For example, the water could be unsuitable for swimming if there are too many rocks, or dangerous for boating if the current is too strong. Further, if residents truly enjoy water activities, they are likely seeking them out elsewhere. Improving water conditions may not be a sufficient motivator for water aficionados to abandon their favorite locals. In assuming that the water remains unused for sporting only because of the cited reasons in complaints, the city’s efforts to increase use by cleaning the water could be misguided.
Lastly, even if the city’s previous assumptions are valid, and the majority of residents thoroughly enjoy water sports and only refrain from doing so due to water quality and smell, increasing the budget for facilities could be a mistake. Even if Mason City residents suddenly decide to go swimming and boating in their hometown, the money may not be necessarily best-used for improving facilities such as bathrooms and changing areas. It is possible that increased activity could require more funds dedicated to staff and safety oversight.
While it is possible the city government is correct in adjudicating for the increased budget dedicated to waterside facilities, the assumptions drawn from the available information lead to a dangerous and logically flawed conclusion. In order to justify their cause, the government must verify the representativeness of the survey data, confirm the reasons the river is not currently used for water sports, and consider alternative budgetary allocations.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-29 | jason123 | 66 | view |
| 2020-01-26 | jason123 | 59 | view |
| 2020-01-20 | Ammu helen | 16 | view |
| 2020-01-17 | ramji90 | 82 | view |
| 2020-01-13 | shekhawat24 | 49 | view |
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Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 19 15
No. of Words: 495 350
No. of Characters: 2659 1500
No. of Different Words: 227 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.717 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.372 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.945 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 162 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 129 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 96 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.053 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.797 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.553 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 155, Rule ID: MAY_COULD_POSSIBLY[1]
Message: Use simply 'could'.
Suggestion: could
...king in sound reasoning. While the city could possibly increase riverside activity, the govern...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, if, lastly, may, so, then, therefore, well, while, for example, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2760.0 2260.96107784 122% => OK
No of words: 495.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.57575757576 5.12650576532 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71684168287 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.14079762699 2.78398813304 113% => OK
Unique words: 237.0 204.123752495 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.478787878788 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 879.3 705.55239521 125% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.9880659649 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 145.263157895 119.503703932 122% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.0526315789 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.57894736842 5.70786347227 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.29100333665 0.218282227539 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0952919896592 0.0743258471296 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0560571129222 0.0701772020484 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.163643035483 0.128457276422 127% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0556441084283 0.0628817314937 88% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.9 14.3799401198 124% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 28.17 48.3550499002 58% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.38 12.5979740519 122% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.46 8.32208582834 114% => OK
difficult_words: 142.0 98.500998004 144% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.