Amtrak is an intercity train service currently owned by the United States government. There are a number of critics who believe that the government should not own Amtrak and that Amtrak should be sold to a privately-owned company. These critics put forward several arguments to support their position.
First, the critics point out that the government loses money on many Amtrak routes. In its effort to serve citizens in all parts of the country, Amtrak maintains routes even in remote and less populated areas. Those routes are not used by enough passengers to cover the cost of maintaining them. The amount of money lost every year due to underuse is sizeable: the government loses up to several hundred dollars per passenger on some routes: and the total losses due to underuse add up to hundreds of millions of dollars every year If Amtrak was privatized, these unprofitable routes could be cut.
Second, government ownership of Amtrak is unfair to privately owned transportation companies such as airlines Government fundi ng of Amtrak means that ticket prices on Amtrak are cheaper than they otherwise would be. However, the government does not give airline companies money so they can lower their ticket prices. This situation clearly is unfair to airlines and other private transportation companies because they must compete against trains for customers.
Third, critics maintain that if the government wants to support national transportation, it should spend its money elsewhere Rail travel is relatively unimportant in the United States: Amtrak currently transports less than 1 percent of the people traveling between cities. A large majority of intercity travelers use other means of transport, such as private cars. The critics argue that rather than finance Amtrak, the government should direct its funding at maintaining and improving the highway system so that intercity car travel becomes faster and more efficient.
According to what the reading passage expressed, there are several reasons that the government sells Amtrack to a private company. In contrast, the professor explained in the lecture that those reasons are not reliable by the explanations below.
The first, losing money on some routes that do not have enough passengers to cover costs is not a good reason to cut up those routes because the government in the United state does not build those routes for its profit. They are for people who live in remote places and need those routes to transport easily at a low price.
Second, government ownership of Amtrack is unfair to airline transportation? That is not true, because the government supports airlines in all kinds of ways such as airline traffic control, weather control, etc. The airline transportation could not exist without lots of supports that the government does.
Third, Amtrak is less popular than traveling by private cars? It is true, but if passengers find a way for traveling that is affordable and fast, they will leave their cars at home like Europeans. So what the government needs to do, is more investing in Amtrak to improve it.
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Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, if, second, so, third, in contrast, such as, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 10.4613686534 96% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 5.04856512141 59% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 7.30242825607 41% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 7.0 12.0772626932 58% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 22.412803532 71% => OK
Preposition: 26.0 30.3222958057 86% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 5.01324503311 160% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 963.0 1373.03311258 70% => OK
No of words: 195.0 270.72406181 72% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.93846153846 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.73687570622 4.04702891845 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6451101102 2.5805825403 103% => OK
Unique words: 119.0 145.348785872 82% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.610256410256 0.540411800872 113% => OK
syllable_count: 293.4 419.366225166 70% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.23620309051 36% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 10.0 13.0662251656 77% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 19.0 21.2450331126 89% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.6516119273 49.2860985944 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.3 110.228320801 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.5 21.698381199 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.7 7.06452816374 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 4.45695364238 67% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.27373068433 47% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.124987800119 0.272083759551 46% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0536239775545 0.0996497079465 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0422515477397 0.0662205650399 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0694887858945 0.162205337803 43% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0279131710747 0.0443174109184 63% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.6 13.3589403974 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 53.8541721854 113% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 11.0289183223 86% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.37 12.2367328918 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.66 8.42419426049 91% => OK
difficult_words: 38.0 63.6247240618 60% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 10.7273730684 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 10.498013245 91% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.2008830022 89% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
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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.