The following appeared in a memorandum from the planning department of an electric power company.
"Several recent surveys indicate that home owners are increasingly eager to conserve energy. At the same time, manufacturers are now marketing many home appliances, such as refrigerators and air conditioners, that are almost twice as energy efficient as those sold a decade ago. Also, new technologies for better home insulation and passive solar heating are readily available to reduce the energy needed for home heating. Therefore, the total demand for electricity in our area will not increase-and may decline slightly. Since our three electric generating plants in operation for the past twenty years have always met our needs, construction of new generating plants will not be necessary."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
Based on the energy-saving willingness of homeowners and the development of energy-saving related technology, the author predicts the demand for electricity in this area will not increase, and thus a new electric generating plant is unnecessary. However, this argument is constructed based on several unevaluated assumptions, and it will be important for the company to consider these assumptions first.
To begin with, the author simply assumes that the energy demands for a single house will decrease according to the energy-conserving willingness of homeowners and the new technologies which can be helpful in reserving the energy. However, this assumption might be inaccurate. Since there is no information about the survey which reflected the willingness of homeowners, we have no idea how many homeowners are eager to conserve energy, and how strong their willingnesses are. If only a few of them are trying to save energy, this assumption is actually untenable and thus the energy demands may increase conversely. Besides, although thanks to the development of technology many home appliances now require less energy, new home appliances are also invented and be used for many homes because of the same reason. Thus, we can not simply affirm that the demands of energy will be lower than before. If data shows that the total energy demands in a home increase while the energy demands of a single appliance decrease, a new generating plant might be necessary then.
Besides, the author assumes that the total energy demands in this area will also decrease with a single home requiring less energy. This assumption, however, also need to be evaluated. The energy demands in this area are not determined by homes only, companies in this area may need more energy than residents, and there is no information showing whether the industrial energy-demanding will decrease. Moreover, the life energy demand can also increase with the increase of population and number of homes in this area, thus, this assumption might be proved unwarranted, and with the increase of total energy demands in this area, new generating plants will be needed.
Even all the data shows that the total demand for electricity in this area will not increase, the conclusion is still constructed based on an unproven assumption that the three old electric generating plants will still work as before. However, considering the possible decline of efficiency in generating plants, we should not confidently assume that the electricity generated will not decrease. If the old generating plants will generate less energy, a new one must be constructed then, although the total energy demands may do not change.
In conclusion, although the argument seems to be well-founded at the first glance, because some of the assumptions it depends on are still unproven, it is actually groundless.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-02-10 | Yam Kumar Oli | 59 | view |
| 2022-12-08 | abhikhanna | 69 | view |
| 2022-12-08 | myfavpear | 62 | view |
| 2022-12-08 | myfavpear | 78 | view |
| 2022-12-07 | abhikhanna | 75 | view |
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 456 350
No. of Characters: 2351 1500
No. of Different Words: 175 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.621 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.156 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.892 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 173 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 126 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.824 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.001 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.941 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.393 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.597 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.16 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 92, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...ll-founded at the first glance, because some of the assumptions it depends on are still unp...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, besides, conversely, first, however, if, may, moreover, so, still, then, thus, well, while, in conclusion, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 24.0 12.9520958084 185% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2417.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 456.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 5.30043859649 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62105577807 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97502217869 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 187.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.410087719298 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 770.4 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.3589897177 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 142.176470588 119.503703932 119% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.8235294118 23.324526521 115% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.0 5.70786347227 140% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.159553791163 0.218282227539 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0623343410508 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0543855719312 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0875031342393 0.128457276422 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0566160157736 0.0628817314937 90% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.9 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 36.63 48.3550499002 76% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.76 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.18 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.5 12.3882235529 125% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 Out of 6
---------------------
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.