The following appeared in a memo from the president of a company that builds and sells new
homes in Steel City.
"Over the past five years, the population of Steel City has increased by more than 20 percent,
and family incomes in Steel City have risen much faster than the national average. Nationwide,
sales of houses priced above $150,000 have increased more than have sales of lower-priced
houses. Such data indicate that we should make changes in our business to increase
company profits. First, we should build fewer low-priced houses than we did last year and
focus instead on building houses designed to sell at above $150,000. Second, we should hire
additional workers so that we can build a larger total number of houses than we did last year."
The memo from the president of a company that builds and sells new homes in Steel City concludes that, in order to make profit, they should build fewer low-priced houses than they did in the previous year. The memo adds the conclusion my stating that they should hire additional workers so that they can build a larger total number of houses than they did last year. To justify this conclusion the argument states that, the population of the city has increased by more than 20 percent, further the national average have risen much faster than national average. However, there are a lot of unexplored variables which should be taken into consideration.
Firstly, the data provided states that there is a growth in the population of Steel City and also states that the family income have risen much faster than the national average. The point here is, family income has risen as compared to the national average but that does not mean that the family income is higher than the national average income. In this case, if the family income is not as much as the national average than it might adversely affect the conclusion because of the fact that there is a rise in population in the city and the family income is not that well.
Secondly, the memo states that the sales of high priced houses have increased other than the lower prices houses, That does not mean that the same thing applies to Stee City. There is a possibility that Steel City has more sales of lower priced than the higher ones.The president has made an assumption that what is implied to the nation will imply to the city as well, but that can or cannot be the case. Even if, such data applies to Steel City, also than there is no evidence than the company is making more profits building the higher priced houses. By selling the higher marked houses the revenue of the company increase but nothing can be stated about the profit.
Finally, the president is planning to make changes in the business plan by lower the production of lower prices houses and increasing the higher priced houses without mentioning any evidence regarding the profit margins. The memo also states to hire additional workers in order to make more number of higher priced houses. Apart from this, te data provided is of the last 5 years and therefore, there is an unstated assumption that what implied to previous 5 years will continue in the years to come where there is possibility that the same data may not be fit for the coming years.
Therefore, the argument is unpersuasive. To bolster this, the president must provide proper evalution of the data before making changes in the business plan by hiring additional workers which can affect the company in a negative way.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 476 350
No. of Characters: 2203 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.671 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.628 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.254 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 92 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 57 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 33 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.75 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.166 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.812 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.377 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.62 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.136 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 468, Rule ID: BECAUSE_OF_THE_FACT_THAT[1]
Message: This phrase is redundant. Use simply 'because'.
Suggestion: because
...t might adversely affect the conclusion because of the fact that there is a rise in population in the ci...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 267, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: The
...es of lower priced than the higher ones.The president has made an assumption that w...
^^^
Line 9, column 216, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in a negative way" with adverb for "negative"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
...al workers which can affect the company in a negative way.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, therefore, well, apart from
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2256.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 475.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 4.74947368421 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66845742379 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.31038220387 2.78398813304 83% => OK
Unique words: 187.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.393684210526 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 723.6 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 56.5386690129 57.8364921388 98% => OK
Chars per sentence: 141.0 119.503703932 118% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.6875 23.324526521 127% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.125 5.70786347227 125% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.339808060077 0.218282227539 156% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.116785958372 0.0743258471296 157% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.100913346816 0.0701772020484 144% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.18040403382 0.128457276422 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.110359915178 0.0628817314937 176% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.5 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.86 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.87 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 98.500998004 85% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.