The following appeared in a letter from the owner of the Sunnyside Towers apartment complex to its manager.
"One month ago, all the showerheads in the first three buildings of the Sunnyside Towers complex were modified to restrict maximum water flow to one-third of what it used to be. Although actual readings of water usage before and after the adjustment are not yet available, the change will obviously result in a considerable savings for Sunnyside Corporation, since the corporation must pay for water each month. Except for a few complaints about low water pressure, no problems with showers have been reported since the adjustment. I predict that modifying showerheads to restrict water flow throughout all twelve buildings in the Sunnyside Towers complex will increase our profits even more dramatically."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction 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 prediction.
In the letter from the Sunnyside Towers Complex owner to its manager, the owner predicts that altering showerheads to decrease water flow in all buildings of the complex will result in an increase of profits. As the basis of this prediction the author points out that 3 of the buildings has undergone such change and there was not much complaints from the residents about the reduced water pressure. His prediction and the evidence behind this, raises some question that needs to be answered in order for it to be evaluated logically.
For a start, are all buildings in the complex are in same condition and thus comparable to one another? In other words, are these buildings have same number of occupancy or water requirement in order for them to be comparable? Perhaps the three buildings the owner talks about have fewer occupants actually using the apartments than the other 9 buildings. Or this might be the case the occupants in those 3 buildings spend most of their day out of their apartments than they spends being at home. Either of these two cases will lower water consumption rate of these 3 building and significantly undermine the authors claim that the outcome of reducing water pressure will be similar for other 9 buildings.
Secondly, did the author consider seasonal variation in water consumption among the residents? Perhaps there were fewer complaints about the reduced water pressure from the residents because it was colder season when water consumption rate is typically low. The residents might not care about the trickling flow of water through their showerheads when they are only showering once a week when its freezing winter. But when it gets warmer, the consumption rate will increase and the complaints about low water pressure will keep pouring in. If the owner didn’t take into account this variation of seasonality then their prediction is significantly weakened.
Last of all, does reducing water pressure actually mean reduced water use? A resident might consume a certain amount of water for their daily use, regardless the water pressure, the only effect of reduced water pressure being increased time spent on chores. Perhaps because of the reduced water flow, the actual water consumption will increase. If that is true, then the author claiming that reducing water flow will result in a reduced water use and thus reduced water bill and increased saving fall short greatly.
In conclusion, the author’s prediction as it stands now is questionable. In order for the prediction to be evaluated logically the author needs to provide answers to the above three question and provide evidence. Only after satisfactory answer to these question we can make any prediction whether reducing water flow will contribute to a profit for the building complex or not.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 461 350
No. of Characters: 2299 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.634 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.987 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.591 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 153 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 126 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.05 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.18 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.45 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.354 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.354 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.158 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 332, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
...undergone such change and there was not much complaints from the residents about the...
^^^^
Line 2, column 476, Rule ID: NON3PRS_VERB[2]
Message: The pronoun 'they' must be used with a non-third-person form of a verb: 'spend'
Suggestion: spend
...r day out of their apartments than they spends being at home. Either of these two case...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 540, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ow water pressure will keep pouring in. If the owner didn’t take into account this...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, if, second, secondly, so, then, thus, in conclusion, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2346.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 460.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 5.1 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.6311565067 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64623711872 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 210.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.45652173913 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 720.0 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 39.9969998875 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.3 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.1 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.20744649205 0.218282227539 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.074337617611 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0876516439274 0.0701772020484 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.125219715537 0.128457276422 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.068437223243 0.0628817314937 109% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.76 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.