The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a Relannian newspaper.
Industry analysts report that the number of dairy farms in Relanna has increased by 25 percent over the last decade. Also, recent innovations in milking technology make it possible for farmers to significantly increase the efficiency of the milking process, allowing them to collect more milk in less time with minimal human intervention. In fact, data from the Relannian Department of Agriculture indicate that labor costs at the majority of Relannian dairy farms are actually lower now than they were ten years ago. Despite increased efficiency and lower labor costs, a carton of cream — a dairy product made from milk — at the local food market costs twice as much as it did two years ago. The only explanation for this dramatic price increase is that farmers are inflating the price of cream to increase their profits.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
________________________________________
The writer argues that the reason for the increase in the price of a carton of cream is due to the exploitation of prices by farmers to increase their profits. Although there is room for the argument to be valid, the argument still lies unfounded for many reasons. The letter states that there has been an advancement in technological innovations towards making the milking process efficient. Technologocial advancements such as electronic machines include large fixed costs and maintenance costs, hence if dairy farmers want to maintain their profits they may have to increase prices in order to cover these costs. Therefore perhaps the price increase is not due to the farmers being avaricious but rather them trying to maintain a stable profit in order to run the businesses efficiently.
Secondly, The writer assumes that the only costs that farmers have to face are labour costs and efficiency costs. There are many other costs that have to be incurred when producing a carton of cream such as the cost of materials used to produce a carton. Further, the dairy industry is a competitive industry, as the paragraph states, the number of dairy farms in Relanna has increased by 25 percent over the last decade, hence farmers may have to undergo advertising costs as well to attract customers to buy their product. Thus assuming that there are only two costs that farmers face may leave room for inaccurate conclusions in this argument.
Furthermore, according to the letter, the data from the Relannian Department of Agriculture indicate that labor costs at the majority of Relannian dairy farms are actually lower now than they were ten years ago. The writer must further question how valid the data from the Relannian Department of Agriculture is.Although they say majority of the dairy farms incur less labour costs, this does not mean that all dairy farms are enjoying lower labour costs. Hence there are other factors that should be considered. It is inaccurate to compare data from 10 years ago without looking into extraneous variables such as the state of the economy at the time. Perhaps anachronistically, there may have been a lower supply of employees resulting in higher wages as opposed to know.
Although the price has increased twice as much compared to two years ago we must consider the magnitude of this increase in cream cartons. Have prices of other products such as cheese, bread or milk increased as much. Perhaps there has been an increase in the overall price of goods in the economy due to a recession or a downward cycle in the economy.
In conclusion, the writer must consider all the above factors before making a correlation between the prices of cream cartons and the intent of farmers.
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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: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 457 350
No. of Characters: 2229 1500
No. of Different Words: 206 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.624 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.877 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.592 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 150 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.389 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.926 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.722 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.323 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.323 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.09 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 617, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
...e prices in order to cover these costs. Therefore perhaps the price increase is not due t...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 421, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ased by 25 percent over the last decade, hence farmers may have to undergo advert...
^^
Line 3, column 312, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: Although
... Relannian Department of Agriculture is.Although they say majority of the dairy farms in...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 456, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
... farms are enjoying lower labour costs. Hence there are other factors that should be ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, furthermore, hence, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, still, therefore, thus, well, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2271.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 456.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 4.98026315789 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62105577807 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66894433979 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.47149122807 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 715.5 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.2801375582 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.166666667 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.3333333333 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.88888888889 5.70786347227 121% => 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 : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.152824059523 0.218282227539 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0479716630776 0.0743258471296 65% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0628634692158 0.0701772020484 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0761998396204 0.128457276422 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0283400234443 0.0628817314937 45% => 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: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => 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: 11.9 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.62 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.