In an attempt to improve highway safety, Prunty County last year lowered its speed limit from 55 to 45 miles per hour on all county highways. But this effort has failed: the number of accidents has not decreased, and, based on reports by the highway patrol, many drivers are exceeding the speed limit. Prunty County should instead undertake the same kind of road improvement project that Butler County completed five years ago: increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways, and improving visibility at dangerous intersections. Today, major Butler County roads still have a 55 mph speed limit, yet there were 25 percent fewer reported accidents in Butler County this past year than there were five years ago.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In preceeding argument, the author asserts that Prunty County should take the same measures as Butler County to lower the rate of traffic accidents, citing a failure in lower speed limit and the success of controlling accidents in Butler County. At first glance, the recommendation may sound logical and plausible; however, a closer scrutiny reveals that the author\'s claimations are not supported by the evidence proffered above.
To begin with, additional information need to be attained in answering whether lowering speed limit could diminish the number of accidents or not. For instance, it is possible that the fact that many drivers are exceeding the speed limit may lead to the high accident rate. Therefore, it might be advisable for the authority of Prunty County to compare the number of accidents between drivers exceeding the speed limit and those not. Alternatively, Prunty County could impose harsher punishment for malfeasanse, and then calculate the accident rate.
In addition, even if a lower speed limit could not reduce the number of accidents, this does not necessarily mean that Prunty County should follow what Butler County had done. The rate of traffic accidents is affected by multifarious factors, and concrete evidence need to be shown that in what areas Prunty County is outperformed by Butler County. Arguably, if roads in Prunty County are already wider than those in Butler County and are in better condition as well, it would be useless to improve the roads.
Last not least, we still need to know if the dwindled number of accidents in Butler County are truly the result of the improvement on roads. In the argument, the author does not effectivelly rule out other possibilities in the five years, during which the number of accidents decreased by one fourth. It might be the fewer number of cars on the roads in Butler County that lowered the number of accidents, for instance. To do so, a thorough investigation and analysis need to be carried out before making any conclusion.
In sum, while it may be true that Prunty County ought to solve the problem of high number of accidents, but professing the failure of a lower speed limit and the copy of seemingly successful policies taken by Butler County makes exact evidence wanting. Otherwise, the valuation of the statment by the author are definitely to be undermined.
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Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, may, so, still, then, therefore, well, while, for instance, in addition, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1979.0 2260.96107784 88% => OK
No of words: 390.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.07435897436 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44391917772 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71206547585 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 182.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.466666666667 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 621.9 705.55239521 88% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Interrogative: 0.0 0.471057884232 0% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.350290946 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.933333333 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.0 23.324526521 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.4 5.70786347227 130% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.250940781264 0.218282227539 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.100595304213 0.0743258471296 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0639282101597 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.15952776068 0.128457276422 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0320005796172 0.0628817314937 51% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.49 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.