Of the two leading real estate firms in our town---Adams Realty and Fitch Realty---Adams 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
The author of this argument claims that Adams Realty is superior to Fitch Realty. To support this claim the author cites certain statistics about the number and working hours of the fa'ms' agents, and the number and sales prices of homes sold by the two fLrms. The author also cites anecdotal evidence involving her own experience with Fitch and Adams. Close scrutiny of this evidence reveals that it lends little credible support for the author's assertion.
The author bases her claim partly on the fact that Adams has more agents than Fitch, and that many of Fitch's agents work only part-time. However, the author provides no evidence that the quality of a real-estate firm is directly proportional to the number of its agents or the number of hours per week that its agents work. Lacking such evidence, it is equally possible that a smaller firm is more effective than a larger one, and that a part-time agent is more effective than a full-time agent. Besides, the author does not provide any information about how many Adams agents work part-time.
To further support her claim the author cites the fact that Adams sold more properties last year than Fitch. However, the author overlooks the possibility that last year's sales volume amounted to an aberration, and that in most other years Adams has actually sold fewer properties than Fitch. Moreover, the disparity in sales volume can readily be explained by factors other than the comparative quality of the two fkrrns. Perhaps Adams serves a denser geographic area, or an area where turnover in home-ownership is higher for reasons unrelated to Adams' effectiveness. Or perhaps sales volume is higher at Adams simply because it employs more agents, and each Adams agent actually sells fewer homes on average than each Fitch agent does. Without ruling out such alternative explanations for the disparity in sales volume, the author cannot defend the conclusion that based on this evidence that Adams is superior to Fitch.
In further support of her claim the author points out that the average sales price of a home sold by Adams is greater than the average price of a home sold by Fitch. However, this evidence shows only that the homes that Adams sells are more valuable on average than the ones that Fitch sells, not that Adams is more effective in selling homes than Fitch. Moreover, it is possible that a few relatively high-priced or low-priced properties skewed these averages, rendering any conclusions about the comparative quality of the two firms based on these averages unfair.
For additional support the author points out that it took Fitch Realty considerable longer to sell one of the author's homes than it took Adams Realty to sell another one of her homes ten years earlier. However, this disparity is explainable by other plausible factors, such as changing economic conditions during that ten-year period, or a difference in the desirability of the two properties. Without establishing that all other factors affecting the speed of a sale were essentially the same for the two homes, the author cannot rely on this limited anecdotal evidence to support her daim.
In conclusion, the author's evidence lends litde credible support to her claim. To persuade me that Adams is better than Fitch, the author would need to provide clear evidence that individual Adams agents are more effective in selling homes than individual Fitch agents, and that the disparity in home sales and sales price is attributable to that difference. Finally, to better evaluate the author's claim we would need more information comparing the percentage
of agents working part-time at Fitch versus Adams. We would also need more information about the comparative attractiveness of the author's two homes, and the extent to which the residential real-estate market changed during the decade between the sale of these two homes.
- An action is morally correct if the amount of good that results from the action is greater than the amount of bad that results from the action 50
- Any leader who is quickly and easily influenced by shifts in popular opinion will accomplish little 50
- People who make decisions based on emotion and justify those decisions with logic afterwards are poor decision makers 50
- Educators should teach facts only after their students have studied the ideas trends and concepts that help explain those facts 58
- The real talent of a popular musician cannot accurately be assessed until the musician has been dead for several generations so that his or her fame does not interfere with honest assessment 58
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: 24 15
No. of Words: 639 350
No. of Characters: 3185 1500
No. of Different Words: 227 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.028 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.984 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.525 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 221 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 156 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 105 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.625 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.4 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.391 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.391 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.205 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 508, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'speakers'' or 'speaker's'?
Suggestion: speakers'; speaker's
...nd this concession, however, I find the speakers contention indefensible from both an em...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 33, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'speakers'' or 'speaker's'?
Suggestion: speakers'; speaker's
... ends. In sum, I find indefensible the speakers suggestion that technologys value lies ...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, moreover, so, still, then, well, while, in short, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 19.5258426966 46% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.4196629213 72% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 14.8657303371 148% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 11.3162921348 97% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 33.0505617978 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 41.0 58.6224719101 70% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 12.9106741573 132% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2649.0 2235.4752809 118% => OK
No of words: 456.0 442.535393258 103% => OK
Chars per words: 5.80921052632 5.05705443957 115% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62105577807 4.55969084622 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.1622890661 2.79657885939 113% => OK
Unique words: 263.0 215.323595506 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.576754385965 0.4932671777 117% => OK
syllable_count: 844.2 704.065955056 120% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.9 1.59117977528 119% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 6.24550561798 112% => OK
Article: 4.0 4.99550561798 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 3.10617977528 64% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.77640449438 394% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.38483146067 137% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 20.2370786517 109% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 23.0359550562 87% => OK
Sentence length SD: 80.5742432647 60.3974514979 133% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.409090909 118.986275619 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.7272727273 23.4991977007 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.5 5.21951772744 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.97078651685 80% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 7.80617977528 26% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 10.2758426966 156% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 5.13820224719 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.83258426966 62% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.390578356372 0.243740707755 160% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.123135899184 0.0831039109588 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.101165344658 0.0758088955206 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.250541091878 0.150359130593 167% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0233966700299 0.0667264976115 35% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.3 14.1392134831 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 25.8 48.8420337079 53% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 11.2 7.92365168539 141% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.1743820225 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 16.42 12.1639044944 135% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.41 8.38706741573 112% => OK
difficult_words: 138.0 100.480337079 137% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 11.8971910112 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.2143820225 89% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.7820224719 110% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Better to have 5/6 paragraphs with 3/4 arguments. And try always support/against one side but compare two sides, like this:
para 1: introduction
para 2: reason 1. address both of the views presented for reason 1
para 3: reason 2. address both of the views presented for reason 2
para 4: reason 3. address both of the views presented for reason 3
para 5: reason 4. address both of the views presented for reason 4 (optional)
para 6: conclusion.
Rates: 79.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.75 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.