“A ten-year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, however, suggests that during the same ten-year period, the number of accidents caused by bicycling has increased 200 percent. These results demonstrate that bicyclists feel safer because they are wearing helmets and they take more risks as a result. Thus, to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents, the government should concentrate more on educating people about bicycle safety and less on encouraging or requiring bicyclists to wear helmets.”
In this argument, the author suggests that to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents, the government should launch an education program that concentrates on the factors other than helmet use that are necessary for bicycle safety. However, the suggestion suffers from several flaws and is therefore unwise and unconvincing as it stands, albeit it may appear plausible at cursory glance.
To begin with, the author sheds light on a ten-year nationwide study which indicates in this span of years the bicyclists reported wearing helmet increased from approximately 35% to 80%, while the number accidents caused by bicycling has increased by 200 percent. The study brings out the fact that there are now a greater number of people using helmets than before. In contrast to this, the author claims increased in percentage of accidents caused due to bicyclist. Even if this baseless claim is considered true, are the accidents caused only due to the bicyclists aren't there other factors that can cause this increase in of the accidents. For example, the condition of the roads might have not been taken care of and due to this the roads are not safe for riding bicycles and caused more traffic. In such a case we cannot blame the bicyclist for the increased accidents, instead it is the governments’ fault. The author need to provide more detailed information regarding the actual cause of accidents.
In addition to this, the author asserts a baseless assumption of bicyclists taking more risk as they are wearing helmets. The assumption is weird and does not have any substantial support. There is no relation between wearing helmet and taking more risks. Moreover, if anyone were to ride bicycle wearing or without wearing helmets, they would ride it with same consciousness and skills, helmets do not play any role in the fashion of riding bicycles and increasing risks of accidents.
Furthermore, the author fails to answer a serious question that, do people really use bicycles even today? As the study mentioned above is a ten-year long study, perhaps more of the population have started using cars and motor-cycles as the advancement in technology and increase in the development have caused a decrease in the price of cars and motor-cycle than what it was 10 years ago. In such a case, launching a program oriented towards factors other than the use of helmets that causes serious injuries from bicycle accidents would not be useful, as most of the population does not use bicycles. Launch of such a program would cause financial loss to the government as a lot of money would be needed for this program. The author needs to provide information and statistical data related to the number of bicycle users.
To conclude, the author seems hurried to jump to the conclusion based on a series of problematic assumptions. To strengthen the argument, further investigation and analysis are needed, as the author is not able to justify his stand and does not present us with relevant support to his stand.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 504 350
No. of Characters: 2472 1500
No. of Different Words: 233 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.738 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.905 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.646 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 188 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 137 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.2 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.81 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.45 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.307 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.525 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 569, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: aren't
...dents caused only due to the bicyclists arent there other factors that can cause this...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 294, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... us with relevant support to his stand.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, really, regarding, so, then, therefore, while, for example, in addition, in contrast, in contrast to, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2537.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 503.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.04373757455 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73578520332 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71947844332 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 240.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.477137176938 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 782.1 705.55239521 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.6033280876 57.8364921388 112% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.85 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.15 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.8 5.70786347227 137% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.227648376006 0.218282227539 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0660583078199 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.102491617114 0.0701772020484 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.10652785864 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0746309299143 0.0628817314937 119% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => 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: 12.25 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.24 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.