"Commuters complain that increased rush-hour traffic on Blue Highway between the suburbs and the city center has doubled their commuting time. The favored proposal of the motorists' lobby is to widen the highway, adding an additional lane of traffic. But last year's addition of a lane to the nearby Green Highway was followed by a worsening of traffic jams on it. A better alternative is to add a bicycle lane to Blue Highway. Many area residents are keen bicyclists. A bicycle lane would encourage them to use bicycles to commute, and so would reduce rush-hour traffic rather than fostering an increase."
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 conclusion of the argument proposed by the writer of the letter results to be affected by unjustified assumptions. In addition, the reasoning on which is based the final statement seems to be not well-organised and inconsistent, as it is possible to detect a troubled analogy and the total absence of quantitative proofs.
Analysing the last two sentences, the author is assuming indirectly that commuters - which ride on Blue Highway - would start to commute by bike if a bicycle lane was added to the road. Whether or not the majority of area residents are keen bicyclists, it does not imply that they would use this mean to commute to work, if there was the possibility. An assumption that could confirm this assertion regards the fact that the length of the Blue Highway is too large to allow workers to arrive at the office in time by bicycle. Moreover, even though it is supported the idea of the writer, is it assured that rush-hour traffic would decrease? Actually, adding an extra lane for bicycle could just change the type of traffic, namely, those generated by four-wheels vehicles could reduce, but that one of two-wheels vehicles may increase, leaving unchanged the number of commuters on the Blue Highway.
Furthermore, not only the conclusion does not sound well-founded but also the logical thought preceding it results incoherent. The example of the Green Highway reported by the author cannot be utilised to strengthen the argument as it is not comparable with the Blue Highway. Accordingly, the author does not provide sufficient information which can proof a strong correlation between the two roads, other than the fact these are located in the same area. However, even if it is assumed the second highway as good comparable, it remains another issue. The writer is certain that the traffic augmentation was caused by the expansion of the street. Notwithstanding, this event could be explained by an alternate cause. For example, it is acceptable to think that in the last year has been built a new mall near one of the exits of Green Highway, which has contributed to rise the traffic on that road.
Moreover, the author never makes use of quantifications to underpin his opinion. Actually, it is unknown the number of compliances by commuters and the average commute time before and after the growth of rush-hour traffic. Also, it is not clear quantitatively the “worsening of the traffic jams” generated in Green Highway and the expression “many area residents” does not give to the reader a proper idea on the amount of bike lovers.
Summing up, the main conclusion of the author results poorly supported by his reasoning. Nevertheless, in order to enhance his position, he should add more statistics on commuters and residential bicyclists, explain why the Green Highway’s example is a good fit and report explanations that make seems reasonable commuting by bike.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 9 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 480 350
No. of Characters: 2358 1500
No. of Different Words: 237 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.681 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.912 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.791 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 135 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.263 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.335 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.306 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.517 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.033 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 187, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'Whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: Whether
...f a bicycle lane was added to the road. Whether or not the majority of area residents are keen...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 333, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ake seems reasonable commuting by bike.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, actually, also, but, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, nevertheless, second, so, then, well, for example, in addition, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2438.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 480.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.07916666667 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68069463864 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93137008283 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 245.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.510416666667 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 750.6 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.4637417827 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.315789474 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.2631578947 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.0 5.70786347227 140% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.293187403676 0.218282227539 134% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0800963484122 0.0743258471296 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0714465186881 0.0701772020484 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.145665355575 0.128457276422 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0898614553759 0.0628817314937 143% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.1 14.3799401198 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.48 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.82 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 120.0 98.500998004 122% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.