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 homeowner has made assumptions that out of the two real estate firms; Adams and Fitch, Adams is blatantly superior. However homeowner's this assumption is not supported by strong evidences. He has made a very indirect comparison which can not yield to results that Fitch real estate agency is less superior.
Firstly, Adams Realty has 40 real estate agents while Fitch Realty has 25 part time agents. This clearly suggests that Fitch's investment in its employees is also lesser compared to Adams. It does not mean that if the real estate agents are less that firm is less superior. It could also mean that since its agents are less its investment is also less.
Sales of Adams Realty was 168000 last year compared to Fitch's which was only 144000. That is the difference is only of 24000 which is not that far considering the number of employees working for Fitch. Also these are home sales values only for last year and we have no evidence that gives the home sales value of the previous years. So the superiority of any firm cannot be stated based on the sales of only one year. Also Adams revenue was twice as high as Fitch which is also stated based on last year which again is not data enough to judge the superiority of any firm.
The homeowner has said that ten years ago it took four months for his house to sell on Fitch while last year his house got sold within a month when listed on Adam's. He cannot compare something that happened ten years ago to something current. It would not be fair to judge someone by what they were ten years ago.
He has not mentioned the exact dimensions of the house and the facilities that were available with both the houses. It could be possible that the previous house was more expensive and larger and was not affordable by the people then. And the same house could have been affordable now. But also we do not know the demands of the people now and ten years ago.
Therefore the homeowner should have ideally given more evidences to prove that Adam's Realty is superior or better than Fitch's Realty. The number of real estate agents working for both, Fitch and Adam ten years ago should have also been stated.
A record of the last ten years' sales of both the firms should have been givn and plotted on a graph to show the more superior one. Also the details of the house sold with Fitch and that sold with Adam should have been mentioned , that is the exact number of rooms, locality. Also the demands and the affordability of the people living around should have been given. Without all these factors it would be difficult to judge or believe which Realty firm is more superior.
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Sentence: A record of the last ten years' sales of both the firms should have been givn and plotted on a graph to show the more superior one.
Error: givn Suggestion: given
flaws:
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5
You don't need to list all flaws and argue. 3 flaws are enough. But more arguments for one flaw. Like this:
para 1: introduction
para 2: arguments for flaw 1
para 3: arguments for flaw 2
para 4: arguments for flaw 3
para 5: conclusion
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 475 350
No. of Characters: 2121 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.668 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.465 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.111 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 119 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 69 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 48 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 32 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.792 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.182 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.321 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.606 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.159 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5