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.
The author concludes that in order to improve safety and decrease road accidents Prunty County should adapt the road improvement project of Butler County and increase lane width instead of just reducing speed. Stated in this way, the argument reveals several instances of poor reasoning and ill-defined terminology. To justify this conclusion, the author reasons that Butler County had 25 percent fewer accidents in the past five years. However, careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals that it provides little credible support for the author’s conclusion. Hence, the argument can be considered incomplete or unsubstantiated.
First of all, the argument readily assumes that even after restraining the speed limits has been affected beneficially. This is merely an assumption made without much solid ground. For example, what if the accidents happening are due to something that is not mentioned in the argument and speed limit has nothing to do with it like drink and drive, improper placements of signboards, improper signs at sharp turns, etc,. Hence, the argument would have been much more cogent if it explicitly mentioned in reports that the reasons for these accidents are due to the speed limits.
The argument claims that the author cites that undertaking the same kind of policy as Butler County will make a difference in the number of road accidents. This again is a weak and unsupported claim as it does not demonstrate any clear correlation between the number of accidents at Prunty County and in Butler County. It fails to consider if the population commuting daily would have been less which in turn decreases the number of accidents. If the evidence would have provided evidence that the population in both of the county are the same then it would have been a lot more convincing to the reader.
Finally, the author cites that Butler bounty had less number of accidents compared to five years ago. However, careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals that it provides little credible support for the author’s conclusion in several critical respects and raises several skeptical questions. For example, the implementation of the project was completed five years ago then why not the number of accidents decreased at that instance for what reason it decreased after five years? What if in the span of four years in between if Butler County had a greater number of accidents? What are the chances of getting the same results in Prunty county and at what basis those chances will be evaluated?. Without convincing answers to these questions, the reader is left with the impression that the claim made by the author is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the author’s argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the author must have provided clear and better concrete evidence, perhaps by way of a detailed analysis of the road conditions in Prunty county, population of both counties and immediate road conditions after implementing projects in butler county, etc, Finally, to better assess the argument, it would be necessary to know more information about why the number of accidents where less in butler county.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-18 | sapana | 33 | view |
| 2019-12-14 | yswang | 34 | view |
| 2019-11-28 | angeshpokharel | 55 | view |
| 2019-11-19 | bishal sitaula | 53 | view |
| 2019-11-17 | smithsonite79 | 63 | view |
- On Balmer Island, where mopeds serve as a popular form of transportation, the population increases to 100,000 during the summer months. To reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, the town council of Balmer Island should limit the 73
- 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 patro 55
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: 20 15
No. of Words: 518 350
No. of Characters: 2616 1500
No. of Different Words: 222 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.771 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.05 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.629 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 206 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 147 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 105 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.9 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.687 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.65 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.344 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.537 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.084 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 419, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , .
...ards, improper signs at sharp turns, etc,. Hence, the argument would have been muc...
^^
Line 5, column 375, Rule ID: IF_WOULD_HAVE_VBN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'had been'?
Suggestion: had been
...sider if the population commuting daily would have been less which in turn decreases the number...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 445, 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.
...turn decreases the number of accidents. If the evidence would have provided eviden...
^^
Line 5, column 461, Rule ID: IF_WOULD_HAVE_VBN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'had provided'?
Suggestion: had provided
...he number of accidents. If the evidence would have provided evidence that the population in both of...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, hence, however, if, so, then, for example, in conclusion, kind of, 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: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2691.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 518.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19498069498 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77070365392 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76552200932 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 229.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.442084942085 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 831.6 705.55239521 118% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 77.0639219905 57.8364921388 133% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.142857143 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.6666666667 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.7619047619 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.167422901373 0.218282227539 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0565493569336 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0465763445904 0.0701772020484 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.100976376439 0.128457276422 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0261359038804 0.0628817314937 42% => 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: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.36 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.