The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a Batavia newspaper.
"The department of agriculture in Batavia reports that the number of dairy farms throughout the country is now 25 percent greater than it was 10 years ago. During this same time period, however, the price of milk at the local Excello Food Market has increased from $1.50 to over $3.00 per gallon. To prevent farmers from continuing to receive excessive profits on an apparently increased supply of milk, the Batavia government should begin to regulate retail milk prices. Such regulation is necessary to ensure both lower prices and an adequate supply of milk for consumers." - GRE Argument 9
This editorial recommends that Batavia's government regulate milk prices because profits from milk sales are excessive given the apparently adequate supply. The editorial also claims that price regulation would help ensure an adequate supply of milk. To support these assertions the author cites the fact that over the past ten years the number of dairy farms in Batavia has increased by 25% while at ExceUo Food Market milk prices have increased by 100%. However, the argument relies on a series of unsubstantiated assumptions, which render it unconvincing as it stands.
First of all, the author...
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 582 350
No. of Characters: 2979 1500
No. of Different Words: 218 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.912 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.119 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.66 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 226 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 153 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 112 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 74 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.385 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.258 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.808 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.392 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.589 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.122 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5