The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette.
"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 number of mopeds rented by the island's moped rental companies from 50 per day to 25 per day during the summer season. By limiting the number of rentals, the town council will attain the 50 percent annual reduction in moped accidents that was achieved last year on the neighboring island of Seaville, when Seaville's town council enforced similar limits on moped rentals."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The above argument stated by the author is flawed for numerous reasons. Primarily, this argument is based on the unwarranted assumption that the only reason behind the increase in the number of accidents is the increased number of mopeds.
Firstly, Seaville’s success cannot be attributed alone to the decreased number of mopeds. For example, it might be possible that the people of Seaville were educated more on traffic rules and safer driving practices during that time which lead to reduced number of accidents. In addition to this, strict traffic laws might have been enforced thus taxing the people who violated them badly. Reducing the number of mopeds is not the primary reason behind the reduction in road accidents. Had the author clearly mentioned the reasons behind reduced road accidents in Seaville, the argument would have been at a better position.
Moreover, Seaville and Balmer are two separate islands. There is no guarantee that same laws enforced in both the places will ensure alike results. It might be possible that people of Balmer are rash drivers by nature and therefore, such policies won’t have much effect on them. Had the author mentioned that people of Seaville and Bogota are similar, the conclusion stated would have been more satisfactory.
In addition, reducing the number of mopeds rented per day to half will not reduce accidents by exact 50%. These figures are fallacious. For example, in the earlier case when 50 mopeds were rented per day, suppose there were an average of 20 accidents per day. Now when 25 mopeds are rented per day, the average number of accidents per day could be anything, less than, equal to, or greater than 20. Thus, there is no strong evidence which can lead to the conclusion that accidents will get reduced by 50%.
Lastly, the language used is not clear and definite. The author does not mention the exact number of people who make use of mopeds for transportation in Balmer. It is described as a ‘popular’ means of transport. This does not guarantee that increased population will lead to a proportionate increase in the demand of mopeds and consequently increased number of accidents.
Thus, all the points mentioned above clearly indicate the loose ends left by the author in the discussion.
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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: 21 15
No. of Words: 378 350
No. of Characters: 1840 1500
No. of Different Words: 174 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.409 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.868 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.461 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 93 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 37 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.768 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.313 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.56 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.087 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 181, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...portation in Balmer. It is described as a 'popular' means of transport....
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, first, firstly, lastly, moreover, so, therefore, thus, for example, in addition
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1923.0 2260.96107784 85% => OK
No of words: 377.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.10079575597 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.4064143971 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68768729773 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 182.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.48275862069 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 597.6 705.55239521 85% => 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
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 38.8153369879 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 91.5714285714 119.503703932 77% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.9523809524 23.324526521 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.66666666667 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
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: 0.164177656465 0.218282227539 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0505488673973 0.0743258471296 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0478970843003 0.0701772020484 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0805561849578 0.128457276422 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0477437015111 0.0628817314937 76% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.6 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.0 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.0 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 98.500998004 85% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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
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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.