The following appeared in an editorial in a local newspaper.
"Commuters complain that increased rush-hour traffic on Blue Highway between the suburbs and the city center has doubled their commuting time. The favored proposal of the motorists' lobby is to widen the highway, adding an additional lane of traffic. Opponents note that last year's addition of a lane to the nearby Green Highway was followed by a worsening of traffic jams on it. Their suggested alternative proposal is adding a bicycle lane to Blue Highway. Many area residents are keen bicyclists. A bicycle lane would encourage them to use bicycles to commute, it is argued, thereby reducing rush-hour traffic."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The above editorial appears to contain a number of flawed assumptions regarding the proposals to reduce the commuting times during the rush-hour traffic. Additionally, the acute deficit of adequate evidence to corroborate the stated claims makes the argument appear imprudent and fallacious. Taken together, the argument is rendered suspect by the lack of cogency and credibility therein.
To begin with, the speaker fails to provide justification that alternative options like a flyover or dependence on public transportations like trains or metros are not more feasible, instead of either widening the highway or adding a bicycle lane to ease commuting. Moreover, there is no mention why the motorists’ lobby came up with the proposal to widen the highway; whether they thoroughly circumspected the pros and cons of the scheme or whether it was only a glib, superficial thought that provoked them to propose so, or whether they has some vested interest behind the plan. Without being aware of the reasons behind the suggestion placed by the motorists’ lobby, one cannot be sure whether to discard or consider it. It is possible that the lobby indeed has justifying reasons for holding that opinion.
Furthermore, the author does not elucidate whether the opponent’s claim regarding the addition of a lane to Green Highway is valid even for Blue Highway. Both the highways maybe fundamentally different in conditions, may encounter contrasting situations or volume of traffic, and so on. Hence, without the validation that the two highways are similar, one cannot simply presume that the addition of an extra lane will entail the same consequences in the Blue highway as that in Green. Besides, the alternative proposal may not really viable for implementation. Since the editorial mentions that the highway connects the suburbs and the city centre, it is likely that the distance is unfeasible for commuting on cycle. Hence, without being lucid on the viability (with regard to distance) of the said proposal, there is no way we can infer the plausibility of the alternative suggestion.
Further, only because ‘many’ area residents are keen bicyclists, we cannot assume they will actually prefer cycling the entire distance on the highway. They may actually prefer commuting by cars, buses or trains. There is no guarantee that the suggestion from the opponents will encourage them to cycle. Besides, what about the rest of the residents who are not ‘keen’ to cycle in the first place? Hence, without the appropriate statistics, and a reliable survey that substantiates the states claims, it is not prudent to assume either proposal.
In essence, the two states proposals do not necessarily serve to arrive at a cogent decision. Unless the the unstated assumptions are addressed or the concomittant doubts verified, the argument stands suspect. Had the argument presented reliable data to corroborate the two proposals, it ould have been easier to evaluate the two.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-12-15 | p30kh40 | 63 | view |
| 2019-11-26 | Nithin Narla | 73 | view |
| 2019-11-16 | PRABINADHIKARI45 | 55 | view |
| 2019-11-03 | Yongrok_Jeong | 63 | view |
| 2019-11-02 | OliverRaab | 55 | view |
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 546, Rule ID: NON3PRS_VERB[2]
Message: The pronoun 'they' must be used with a non-third-person form of a verb: 'have'
Suggestion: have
...ked them to propose so, or whether they has some vested interest behind the plan. W...
^^^
Line 9, column 102, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
... to arrive at a cogent decision. Unless the the unstated assumptions are addressed or t...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 102, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
... to arrive at a cogent decision. Unless the the unstated assumptions are addressed or t...
^^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['actually', 'besides', 'first', 'furthermore', 'hence', 'if', 'may', 'moreover', 'really', 'regarding', 'so', 'to begin with', 'with regard to', 'in the first place']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.226691042048 0.25644967241 88% => OK
Verbs: 0.148080438757 0.15541462614 95% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0712979890311 0.0836205057962 85% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0585009140768 0.0520304965353 112% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0255941499086 0.0272364105082 94% => OK
Prepositions: 0.113345521024 0.125424944231 90% => OK
Participles: 0.0329067641682 0.0416121511921 79% => OK
Conjunctions: 3.03452710494 2.79052419416 109% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0310786106033 0.026700313972 116% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.131627056673 0.113004496875 116% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0201096892139 0.0255425247493 79% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0073126142596 0.0127820249294 57% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3015.0 2731.13054187 110% => OK
No of words: 473.0 446.07635468 106% => OK
Chars per words: 6.37420718816 6.12365571057 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66353547975 4.57801047555 102% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.433403805497 0.378187486979 115% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.323467230444 0.287650121315 112% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.241014799154 0.208842608468 115% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.15221987315 0.135150697306 113% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.03452710494 2.79052419416 109% => OK
Unique words: 258.0 207.018472906 125% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.545454545455 0.469332199767 116% => OK
Word variations: 65.6154642604 52.1807786196 126% => OK
How many sentences: 21.0 20.039408867 105% => OK
Sentence length: 22.5238095238 23.2022227129 97% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.0858795822 57.7814097925 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 143.571428571 141.986410481 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.5238095238 23.2022227129 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.666666666667 0.724660767414 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 3.58251231527 84% => OK
Readability: 54.8705325682 51.9672348444 106% => OK
Elegance: 1.6062992126 1.8405768891 87% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.612151423873 0.441005458295 139% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.116760895271 0.135418324435 86% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0690115308984 0.0829849096947 83% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.606613806093 0.58762219726 103% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.149915798826 0.147661913831 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.272688611172 0.193483328276 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.103543608431 0.0970749176394 107% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.502413805649 0.42659136922 118% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0848450341034 0.0774707102158 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.440478336415 0.312017818177 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.073671330414 0.0698173142475 106% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.33743842365 84% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.87684729064 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.82512315271 187% => Less neutral sentences wanted.
Positive topic words: 4.0 6.46551724138 62% => OK
Negative topic words: 4.0 5.36822660099 75% => OK
Neutral topic words: 7.0 2.82389162562 248% => OK
Total topic words: 15.0 14.657635468 102% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.