In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating, and fishing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes little of its budget to maintaining riverside recreational facilities. For years there have been complaints from residents about the quality of the river's water and the river's smell. In response, the state has recently announced plans to clean up Mason River. Use of the river for water sports is, therefore, sure to increase. The city government should for that reason devote more money in this year's budget to riverside recreational facilities.
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.
The author of the passage claims that the city government should increase the budget to enhance the riverside recreational facilities, and suggests several reasons that seem to uphold his/her claim. However, the passage is rife with holes and assumptions, which need to be eliminated in order for the author to maintain his/her claim with clear warrant. Such flaws will be discussed with further details below.
First of all, the author does not provide substantial information about how the survey was conducted. He/she should have to clarify the duration of the survey and the total number of respondents. If the survey was held only for a few hours during daytime on weekdays, then only certain types of people such as those who does not have a job would have been able to respond. Then, the collected respondents would not be reliable enough to represent the whole residents in Mason City. Moreover, there is also a possibility that not many people had answered to the survey. If only two to three people responded among thousands of residents, then the the number of responds would be negligible enough, making the result extremely unreliable.
Secondly, the author reasons that there has been a number of complaints about the river for several years, and needs to be cleaned which will encourage the residents to utilize it for recreational purposes. However, he/she needs to clarify who has been signing up for the complaints and exactly how many complaints there were. If there were only two to three complaints among thousands of residents every year, then the amount is trivial and the government should not be concerned about it. Also, maybe the complaints are coming from the same residents every year, from those who live beside the river. They may not be the ones who enjoy recreational water activities, which indicates that even though the government cleans the river, the number of residents who would pursue water activities in the Mason River would not increase.
Furthermore, the author assumes that those who answered that they enjoy water sports the most would certainly use the Mason River if it is cleaned up. However, there is a possibility that they usually enjoy pursuing water sports only during vacations or on holidays in different regions, regardless of the river's quality. Maybe they enjoy water sports only in seas, not in rivers. This would indicate that even if the government cleans the river and opens recreational facilities, it is highly unlikely that the residents would start enjoying water sports in the Mason River.
Last but not least, the author also assumes that the water's low quality and the river's smell is due to it's dirtiness. However, this is clearly a haste assumption resulting from lack of thorough investigation. Maybe the river contains certain natural components which exudes odor and makes the water murky. If this is the case, then the quality of the river would not be enhanced by cleaning.
To sum up, even though the author's claim seems plausible, through thorough investigation and reading the passage from various points of view, it is confirmed that the his/her claim is clearly unwarranted. In order for the author to maintain his/her claim with upholding warrant, he/she would have to eliminate the defects of making haste assumptions, providing lack of clear and substantial information, and lack of thorough investigation.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-03-12 | Mishtee Gandhi | 66 | view |
| 2023-08-21 | Kathy_zkx | 83 | view |
| 2023-08-09 | DCAD123 | 60 | view |
| 2023-08-01 | Fortune Quarshie | 68 | view |
| 2023-07-23 | chwj | 80 | 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: 9 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 563 350
No. of Characters: 2775 1500
No. of Different Words: 233 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.871 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.929 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.535 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 186 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.458 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.401 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.31 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.31 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.142 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 642, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...nded among thousands of residents, then the the number of responds would be negligible ...
^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 642, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...nded among thousands of residents, then the the number of responds would be negligible ...
^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 164, Rule ID: DT_PRP[1]
Message: Possible typo. Did you mean 'the' or 'his'?
Suggestion: the; his
...us points of view, it is confirmed that the his/her claim is clearly unwarranted. In or...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, such as, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2842.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 556.0 441.139720559 126% => OK
Chars per words: 5.11151079137 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.85588840946 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6222404785 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 238.0 204.123752495 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.428057553957 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 859.5 705.55239521 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.354295165 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.416666667 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.1666666667 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.95833333333 5.70786347227 87% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.165507685583 0.218282227539 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0500032078673 0.0743258471296 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0422483632908 0.0701772020484 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0810726428878 0.128457276422 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.048741165731 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.1 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
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.