The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Walnut Grove town newspaper.
"Walnut Grove's town council has advocated switching from EZ Disposal (which has had the contract for trash collection services in Walnut Grove for the past ten years) to ABC Waste, because EZ recently raised its monthly fee from $2,000 to $2,500 a month, whereas ABC's fee is still $2,000. But the town council is mistaken; we should continue using EZ. EZ collects trash twice a week, while ABC collects only once. Moreover, EZ — which, like ABC, currently has a fleet of 20 trucks — has ordered additional trucks. Finally, EZ provides exceptional service: 80 percent of respondents to last year's town survey agreed that they were 'satisfied' with EZ's performance."
The author of this argument asserts that the decision of Walnut Grone's town council in replacing the EZ Disposal with ABC Waste, two trash collectors, is mistaken. To support his claim the author cites that although the the ABS's fee is $500 less than the EZ Disposal's fee, the EZ Disposal collects twice per week, and ABS Waste does it once. The article also cites that they both have same numbers of trucks, 20 trucks. To strengthen his claim the article mentions that a survey done in the recent years shows that 80%respondents are satisfied by the service of the EZ Disposal. The reasoning rest on a series of unconvincing assumptions, and is therefore unpersuasive as it stands.
The author bases his claim partly on the fact that the EZ Disposal works twice as much as the ABC does. However, the author ignores the reality that the number of collecting trash is not the main factor to judge these companies. In fact, what we should notice and make decision based on about these companies is quality of their work. It is possible that the council of this town has observed the better performance of the ABC Waste during once collection of trash. Lacking evidence to disclose the quality of both cases, I cannot express my compliance to the what the author urge on it in his mind.
In further support of this assertion, the article points out that since the both companies have same numbers of trucks, no one can do more. But, the number of the track is not the main factor for the trucks. What we should consider in order to evaluate these vehicles is their facilities and quality of their truck. Perhaps, ABC Waste' trucks have better facilities. Or perhaps, they are newer ones and produce less pollution in comparison to EZ Disposal' trucks, since pollution itself may be a problem in this town. Without ruling out such alternative explanations for trucks and their roles on judging the quality of these companies, the author cannot defend his reasoning that EZ Disposal is better.
For additional support, the excerpt's author is of the opinion that referring to a survey, declaring that majority of citizens would express their confidence and tendency on the services provided by EZ Disposal, is what we are able to rely on to make decision about service of this company. Nevertheless, the memo has overlooked to provides information about numbers of participants in this survey. It is critical since ten or twenty persons cannot reflect the whole town's opinion about it. Besides, it is possible that these people are not familiar with other companies' services and quality that work on this area. Under such condition, they are agree with little work done at this area. Nor has compelling evidence provided about this point. So the author cannot rely on this survey to convince readers that EZ Disposal is what we should trust for collecting trash.
Finally, the author implies that $500 fee is not so much to switch from one company to another. However, we should be aware that in years this money can be very much. so if controlled very well, it can play positive role in many areas in the town like providing fund for making greener town.
In conclusion, the author's evidence lends little credible support to his claim. To persuade me that this recommendation is correct the author must specify clear information about both companies' quality of work. We would also need determined information about trucks not just number of them. The author would need consider cogent evidence about the numbers of respondents.
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argument 1 -- suppose they have same quality, how are you going to argue?
argument 2 -- read this: 'has ordered additional trucks.'
argument 3 -- not OK. In GRE/GMAT, we have to accept all data or evidence are true. It is important to find out loopholes behind surveys or studies. Loopholes mean that we accept all surveys told are true, but there are some conditions applied, for example:
It works for time A (10 years ago), but it doesn't mean it works for time B (nowadays).
It works for location A (a city, community, nation), but it doesn't mean it works for location B (another city, community, nation).
It works for people A (a manager), but it doesn't mean it works for people B (a worker).
It works for event A (one event, project... ), but it doesn't mean it works for event B (another event, project...).
argument 4 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 603 350
No. of Characters: 2861 1500
No. of Different Words: 252 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.955 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.745 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.457 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 202 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 144 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.793 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.868 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.448 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.287 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.497 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.11 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5