The following appeared in a letter from a homeowner to a friend.
"Of the two leading real estate firms in our town — Adams Realty and Fitch Realty — Adams Realty is clearly superior. Adams has 40 real estate agents; in contrast, Fitch has 25, many of whom work only part-time. Moreover, Adams' revenue last year was twice as high as that of Fitch and included home sales that averaged $168,000, compared to Fitch's $144,000. Homes listed with Adams sell faster as well: ten years ago I listed my home with Fitch, and it took more than four months to sell; last year, when I sold another home, I listed it with Adams, and it took only one month. Thus, if you want to sell your home quickly and at a good price, you should use Adams Realty."
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 prompt’s author argues that Adams Realty is superior to Fitch Realty. To support this argument, he/she cites Adams’ greater number of real estate agents, revenue figures, average home sales, and its faster selling rate compared to Fitch. On the surface, these statistics do seem to strengthen the author’s viewpoint. However, his/her overall argument is flawed as it rests on four unwarranted assumptions.
To begin, the author encourages us to assume that he/she is an unbiased source. However, it is possible that there are financial motives behind his position. Indeed, it is possible that the homeowner has been promised some sort of financial compensation from Adams Realty if his/her friend uses this real estate firm. This financial compensation may come in various forms, ranging from a potential higher selling price for a home in the future or a discount. Besides this financial motive, there may also be a social motive behind the author’s position. For instance, the author may be close friends with Adams Realty’s owners. Should there be any motive that jaundices the homeowner’s perspective, then his/her argument is not an unbiased one. Consequently, the argument no longer holds water.
Secondly, the author assumes that both of these real estate firms are similar enough to be compared. Yet, this may not hold true if they are different in key respects. For example, it is possible that Adams Realty is a large and old real estate firm compared to Fitch. If so, then comparing these two firms would not be fair as they are vastly different. Similarly, the two firms may sell different kinds of homes. For instance, Adams Realty may sell mostly posh and luxurious homes, while Fitch sells more garden-variety homes. Indeed, this difference may account for the greater revenue and average selling price of Adams Realty compared to Fitch. Hence, if such differences exist amongst these two firms, then a comparison of these two firms would be analogous to comparing apples and oranges.
Moreover, the author’s argument rests on several assumptions regarding real-estate agents. Firstly, the author assumes that Adams Realty is the superior firm as it has 15 more real-estate agents than Fitch. Yet, the number of agents does not necessarily indicate the quality of work they are capable of doing. Indeed, it is possible that Fitch’s 25 real-estate agents have greater knowledge, talent, and skill levels than Adam’s 40. Similarly, the author assumes that part-time real estate agents are inferior to full-time agents. Since Fitch mostly has part-time workers, the conclusion the homeowner makes is that Adams is superior to Fitch. However, part-time work does not necessarily equate to inferior work. Instead, it is possible that the part-time workers at Fitch work far more productively than Adams’ agents. Thus, if these assumptions regarding the agents do not hold true, then the argument is significantly weakened.
In conclusion, the argument that Adams Realty is better than Fitch Realty is a flawed one as it is based on four unwarranted assumptions. Yet, if the author can provide evidence that addresses these four areas, then it would be possible to better assess the argument.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-08-25 | SanjanaB | 66 | view |
| 2023-08-18 | Dinesh4518 | 75 | view |
| 2023-08-11 | Sounderya | 50 | view |
| 2023-05-19 | shubham1102 | 50 | view |
| 2023-04-26 | futurefuture | 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: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 31 15
No. of Words: 521 350
No. of Characters: 2609 1500
No. of Different Words: 216 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.778 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.008 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.543 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 200 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 135 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.806 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.999 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.742 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.302 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.474 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, consequently, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, similarly, so, then, thus, while, for example, for instance, in conclusion, sort of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 52.0 28.8173652695 180% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2724.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 516.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.27906976744 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.76609204519 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68401547428 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 227.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.43992248062 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 829.8 705.55239521 118% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 31.0 19.7664670659 157% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 28.6715948946 57.8364921388 50% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 87.8709677419 119.503703932 74% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.6451612903 23.324526521 71% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.1935483871 5.70786347227 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.378367662996 0.218282227539 173% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.112468894101 0.0743258471296 151% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.11784518718 0.0701772020484 168% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.220362951846 0.128457276422 172% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0717238492316 0.0628817314937 114% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.8 14.3799401198 82% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.04 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 118.0 98.500998004 120% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 12.3882235529 52% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.