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 the assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
While the author’s intentions of cleaning up the river and increasing its use for water sports seem very worthwhile, there may be some assumptions that need further examination before the city government devotes more money in this year's budget to riverside recreational facilities.
Firstly, the author seems to assume that the water quality and the smell of Mason River are the chief reason for its rarely being used for swimming, boating and fishing. This may not be the case. If the river is a shallow one with rapids that is suitable only for rafting, swimming might not be a possibility. If that is the case, then taking care of water quality and smell will not make it suitable for swimming. It would still be unsafe because of the nature of the river course and the water flow through it. Similarly, if this is a river that simply lacks fish, then apart from improving the water quality, it might also need to be restocked with fish. Finally, if there are sandbars in the river, then boating will not be possible even if the river is cleaned. Indeed, if the river is rarely used for boating, the reasons for that lack of use may lie in other factors since other fairly heavily polluted rivers around the world (the Thames, for example) are used for boating notwithstanding. This suggests that the author needs to look elsewhere for the reason why Mason River is not used for boating, for example.
Further, he seems to have pinned his hopes for revival of water sports on the mere announcement by the state of plans to clean up the river. This, however, may not guarantee that the river will indeed be successfully cleaned. The state may have good intentions, but even if they go ahead as planned, one wonders whether they have taken into account the sources of pollution and how easy or complex it will be to deal with. After all, cleaning up a river is not a mere question of pouring a chemical into it, sewage treatment may plants need to be set up or expanded in capacity. If the run off into the river is chemical in nature (proceeding from local factories, for example) this may require special processes to deal with and store those effluents. A key assumption, seems to be that the problems of pollution in Mason River have been adequately understood and that the plans and funding envisioned by the state are sufficient to resolve them.
Finally, there is the author’s assertion that the city government should devote more money in this year's budget to riverside recreational facilities. This assumes that there is some deficiency in this regard. But is there? Perhaps, once the river is cleaned up, the existing facilities will be adequate. Further, what does the author mean by riverside facilities and would those be what is required for swimming, fishing, or boating. Also, the assumption is the provision of facilities would promote the pursuit of all three sports. But it is possible that providing facilities for one sport might interfere with the pursuit of the other. So, larger docks might promote an increase in boating, but it might also interfere with swimming in the river and the consequent increase in boat traffic might also restrict fishing. Before funding is provided such issues need to be looked into.
Thus, while the author’s intentions seem good, certain complexities may need to be adequately tackled before his vision becomes a reality.
| 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 |
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 12 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 580 350
No. of Characters: 2733 1500
No. of Different Words: 241 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.907 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.712 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.434 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 180 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.308 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.75 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.769 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.295 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.433 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.103 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 227, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...e city government devotes more money in this years budget to riverside recreational ...
^^^^
Line 7, column 95, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
... government should devote more money in this years budget to riverside recreational ...
^^^^
Line 7, column 823, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Before” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...at traffic might also restrict fishing. Before funding is provided such issues need to...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, look, may, similarly, so, still, then, thus, while, after all, apart from, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 37.0 19.6327345309 188% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 28.0 12.9520958084 216% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2811.0 2260.96107784 124% => OK
No of words: 580.0 441.139720559 131% => OK
Chars per words: 4.84655172414 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.90746259869 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.54297837214 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 258.0 204.123752495 126% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.444827586207 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 873.9 705.55239521 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 10.0 2.70958083832 369% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.5465731902 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.115384615 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.3076923077 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.19230769231 5.70786347227 91% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 12.0 4.67664670659 257% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.205404340336 0.218282227539 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0606446972489 0.0743258471296 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0558163095809 0.0701772020484 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.110479862735 0.128457276422 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0761683866292 0.0628817314937 121% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.15 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.16 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 126.0 98.500998004 128% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.